I heard a interesting rumor that may make everyone happy. With the market meltdown the NWA pensions now are going to come at a huge cost increase to Delta that may not be affordable. Management is looking and thinking. At a minimum expect the DCC to be delayed. Perhaps this whole thing will go away after all and both sides can be happy!

IMHO there is no way they will try and back out now. Way to much hype and money has been spent. Not to mention they are running around telling investors the deal will gain 3 billion in synergies.

News to me. That has not crossed me path today with all of my travels.

In fact if that were the case, it contradicts what I have been hearing. Furthermore, we would need to hire twice as many as planned.

I can assure you that this rumor is total BS. I just got measured for DAL uniform this morning! Nice wishful thought though!!

That makes some sense. The S&P 500 is down 40% since this merger was announced. Its reasonable to assume the NWA pension funds have suffered a similar loss. That's billions of dollars.
The economics of the merger may have changed in a fundamental way.

except that the benefits of a merger are long term and the market always has its ups and downs. This is going to happen regardless of whether we want it to or not.

You're kidding, right?

Me and my 401k wish this was a normal down market. Its not.
This is a crash. A full scale financial disaster on a global scale.

The markets might recover before DCC. Let's hope. But if they don't, the execs have got to re-examine the assets and liabilities of NWA pensions.

Those pensions were already underfunded. They are now going to be unsustainable.
Does Delta really want to buy a guaranteed trip to bankruptcy court? We'll see.

I believe a lot of the NWA pension is in bonds not stocks and it was on pace to be fully funded by 2011. With the mass amount of money mother government is printing right now I would think interest rates would have to go up if they want the dollar to be worth anything. Further, the amount of money being invested in this new entity is staggering. But you never know in this climate however last I heard was the DCC was on track for December 1st.

I never said it was a "normal" down. Its definitely not good but it is a cycle and will come back up. Could be soon or it may take years, I dont know if i did i wouldn't be here.

I am sure you are kidding in this post. Read your own 10Q reports. The pensions were underfunded by billions before the market meltdown. NWA had applied for and been granted pension relief to make far lower payments then normally required under pension law. If they were on track to fully fund the pensions in 2011 they would never have taken the restrictions that went with the pension relief act. The state of the pensions as of today is not know however it can't be good.