If a merger were to take place; no one would know about it until it happened. If anyone knew about it, they wouldn't be able to say anything since they are under a NDA. Ng4 is not going to tell anyone if a merger were to or is going to happen. He'd tow the Delta managment party line of "not gonna happen" or "there will be no merger".

This big "synergy" has been in the making since before DL and NWA went into bankruptcy. All the initial puzzle pieces had to be built before it was announced; such as buying Mesaba and creating Compass. RA was picked to be CEO for a reason; He knew NWA inside and out and needed to be at the helm of Delta for the merger. If there were to really be no merger Grinstein would have been able to pick a successor and it would have been Bastian or Whitehurst. USAir put a kink in the plan but Delta was able to fend them off!
RA stated that there would be no mergers for Delta when he took over the helm, but as soon as all the pieces were ready.....bang! There are things that are going to unfold as soon as Delta gets their SOC and I believe it will all happen quicky due to stuff that is going on behind the scenes. My contacts at DCI and DL are mum on any new news and they're usually singing like canaries.