Warbird Information Exchange

Delta and NWA have finally merged, Stock is going up, any comments? anybody work there?
This is supposed to create the largest US airline, is that going to be a good thing, especially for employees?

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All I did was press this red button here...

I just got off the phone with a close friend who is a flight attendant with NWA and he doesn't expect much to happen for a while - he figures he's got the job for another year, at least until they start consolidating some of the flights - do Delta and NWA have a lot of overlap?

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

As a nearly 30 year Delta employee, my personal opinion is that the merger is a very good thing for both companies. We do have some route overlap in the U.S., but it's not a large amount. Our overseas routes are going to mesh very nicely as Delta has been very active and well known in the Europe/Africa markets and Northwest is very established in the Asia markets. The combined company is going to be able to use the large fleet of planes very effectivly for the markets. For example, some of the former Northwest 747's will be coming to Atlanta to be used on some high demand transatlantic routes and some of Delta's 777's will be utilized more in Asia where their size is more suited to the demand.

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Rod Schneider
Ball Ground, Ga

I'm just wondering how the whole Airbus deal is going to work out. Delta has been ardently anti-Airbus its entire existence and it just bought/merged with a major Airbus customer. Will be interesting to see what happens.

I think the Delta/NWA merger makes a lot of sense, just like the USAir/America West one. I couldn't see United & AAL for example merging because of overlap, but one of the interesting things with Airlines is that overlap doesn't seem to be too much of an issue anymore as you don't have many hubs that are so close to each other as to cause problems.

I'm not so sure we were anti-Airbus as much as we were pro Boeing (and Douglas). We did get some A310's when we acquired parts of Pan Am in the early 90's. They were in rough shape, which probably contributed to the dislike we had for them, but actually working on them was not bad. Airbus factory support wasn't nearly as good as Boeing, but I've heard that that has changed a lot. We are also going to be the North American launch customer for the 787, assuming it ever gets into service.........

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Rod Schneider
Ball Ground, Ga

Well, that's good to hear. I was concerned it might turn into another TWA deal for northwest.... where a year later everyone had been pink slipped. I hope it does well financially going forward... for everyone, since most employees have stock in their company through pensions, etc.

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All I did was press this red button here...

Believe me, Airbus factory support still sucks if you're outside the central EU (i.e. Germany or France). It doesn't help when operators are forced into buying Airbus just to get landing slots in Europe at a half-decent time (which is what happened with NWA by the way) and then get handed a load of planes that require 6 months of work just to be able to get them flying. United went through that with their birds. Frontier couldn't get current software for their sims. American's aircraft were delivered without several options they'd paid for and had to install them on their own dime. Add to that, their InFlight Entertainment system is "fully integrated" into the airplane which means if it fails you can't leave because it controls all of the Emergency Lighting system and the PA system. Oh, and don't try to get a plane without it because its failure rate is abhorrent, it's a "required" part of the plane.

Boeing can be a bastard at times, but at least they'll sell you the plans for a part so you can make them in house if you want or ship you only what you want instead of what they think you need.

Airbus sells its planes for less than Boeing because they make their money in the parts by charging you for an engineer in Toulouse to inspect your part for an AOG aircraft but yet you get it the next day direct from the supplier in the US. They then tell you that while they shipped you one part for your AOG aircraft, they're going to be charging you and shipping to you for a number of additional of that part because "based on your fleet size, you need this many spares on hand," whether you want them or not.

Add to that some of the BS they do to their systems (especially the fuel system) and you get an airplane that flies, is safe, and looks good on paper up front, but once in service is a bear to operate.