DCC anyone?
Delta-Northwest merger’s final approval may be near
By KELLY YAMANOUCHI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines’ merger with Northwest Airlines may get U.S. Department of Justice approval in a matter of days, industry observers say.
Some say the deal could be granted antitrust approval in early November, or even earlier, although that could depend on resolving some issues.
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“There was really nobody out there who put forth any good opposition on this,” said longtime airline consultant Darryl Jenkins.
Michael Boyd, president of Boyd Group International Inc., an aviation consulting firm in Evergreen, Colo., said he expects the Department of Justice to announce its decision very soon.
“It’s not like they are still studying it,” he said. The merger was easy to evaluate on antitrust grounds, because “there is almost no overlap of routes, so why would you turn it down?”
Once the Nov. 4 election is over, the Bush administration’s antitrust regulators will start to wrap up their work and likely will say, “Let’s get it over with,” Boyd said. “Why leave this in the inbox” for the next administration? he asked.
Delta spokesman Kent Landers said Tuesday he could not comment on timing of the closing. “We remain confident it will close by the end of the year, but no updates,” he said.
Northwest Chief Executive Doug Steenland said last week during an investor conference call that the Eagan, Minn.-based company expects the closing of the merger to occur “soon.”
When Delta Chief Executive Richard Anderson was asked during an investor conference call Oct. 15 how confident he was that the Justice Department would sign off on the deal by the end of the year, Anderson said “extremely confident.”
Delta plans to close the deal within days of the approval. Anderson said in a message to employees last week that the Justice Department approval “is really basically the last major hurdle before the deal closes.”
“After the DOJ approves, there’s a bunch of paperwork and legal documents that need to be put in order before we officially close the deal,” Anderson said. “It’s basically tying up any loose ends and that should take a few days.”
There could be some issues to wrap up, including a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by travelers suing to block the merger, who are represented by Joseph Alioto.
Meanwhile, Delta and Northwest pilots remain in an arbitration process to decide how to integrate their seniority lists in the merger. The last in a series of arbitration hearings is scheduled for Nov. 15-17, though the arbitration panel urged the two parties to come to a negotiated agreement before a decision from the panel.
— Staff writer Marilyn Geewax in Washington, D.C., contributed to this article.