Delta-Northwest Combination Deal

An impasse among pilot negotiators over blending seniority lists put a $20 billion deal to combine Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. in "serious jeopardy" as the boards of the two companies prepared to meet Wednesday, two people close to talks told The Associated Press.

The people said the pilots unions have agreed on a comprehensive joint contract, but they are unable to agree to how seniority for the 12,000 pilots would work under a combined carrier. The people asked not to be named because of the sensitive stage of the talks.

They said late Tuesday that the pilot talks were expected to continue Wednesday, but if no agreement is reached, a deal on a combination of the two airlines would be in real trouble.

The boards of both companies were expected to vote on a combination agreement Wednesday if a pilot deal is in place by then. Otherwise, they were expected to just get an update on the merger talks, three people close to the talks said.

One of the officials close to the talks said Northwest's board might only meet by teleconference or, if things fall apart, not meet at all.

A Delta spokeswoman declined to comment on consolidation issues involving Delta. Delta has previously said it was considering a possible consolidation transaction, but it has not commented beyond that.

Talk of airline consolidation has heightened in recent months amid persistently high fuel prices, which are eating away at the industry's bottom line.

A combination of Atlanta-based Delta and Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest would create the world's largest airline in terms of traffic. That's before any divestitures regulators might require them to make if they combine.

There also has been speculation about a possible combination of Chicago-based UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and Houston-based Continental Airlines Inc., which would be a bigger airline than Delta-Northwest in terms of traffic.

The clock is ticking to get any deals accomplished quickly, some observers say. That's because industry observers believe a combination has a better chance of surmounting the considerable political and regulatory hurdles under the current administration than under President Bush's successor.

Delta and Northwest don't need a labor agreement between their pilots unions before announcing a combination, but having one in place now could help them speed up the integration of the two carriers down the line.

One of the people close to the talks said Tuesday night that a small group of Northwest seniority list pilot negotiators want thousands of young Delta pilots to go to the bottom of the combined seniority list as part of agreeing to a deal on seniority. The person said that was a major hang-up.
A spokesman for the Northwest pilots union, Greg Rizzuto, did not immediately return a call and a page to his cell phone seeking comment.

The pilots from both companies have agreed to a significant equity stake for the pilots, including raises for some, one of the people close to the talks said. However, a second person close to the talks said it was not clear that the equity issue had been resolved.

Much of the terms of how the combined carriers would operate had been resolved as of Tuesday, two people close to the talks said. The combined carrier would be based in Atlanta, would be called Delta and Delta's chief executive, Richard Anderson, would be head of the new company, the people said.

It remained unclear what role Northwest's CEO, Doug Steenland, would play in the combined carrier, the people said. A combined Delta-Northwest would maintain a substantial presence in Minneapolis and there would be no furloughs for front-line U.S. employees, the people said. The two airlines have roughly 85,000 total employees.

Extreme Delays: Which Flights Are the Worst

Extreme delays that leave passengers trapped on airplanes for hours may seem as random as the weather. But those on-board nightmares that have garnered so much attention are more predictable than you think.

An analysis of extreme-delay data from last year shows clear patterns: Certain airlines and certain airports were more prone than others to long delays before takeoff and very late arrivals. Even certain flights had repeated trouble with very long delays.

When storms are forecast, for example, you might be wise to pack some food and tote your own water if traveling on Delta Air Lines Flight 133 from New York's Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles International Airport. That flight sat for more than three hours waiting to take off after pushing back from a gate on seven different days last year, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. That was more than any other flight.

Delta's Flight 31 on the same route had "taxi-out" times longer than three hours on six occasions, as did Continental Express Flight 2450 from Syracuse, N.Y., to Newark, N.J. Eight other flights ended up with taxi-out delays of three hours or more five different times.
Airlines say some flights simply end up at the end of long lines more often than others because they try to depart at the airport's busiest time. But it can be more than just unfortunate timing. Airline operations managers can juggle departures because of factors like which crews may run out of duty time first, which planes are more urgently needed for their next scheduled flight, which flights have the most high-dollar business travelers who they least want to be canceled, and which flights are headed to destinations with late-night curfews -- where airlines can be fined for flights arriving after a certain hour.

Delta says its flights sat in the JFK "penalty box" -- a remote parking area for jets -- on days when thunderstorms west of New York caused air-traffic controllers to suspend westbound departures for long periods of time. The carrier will cancel flights headed to airports with weather trouble to thin out arrivals, but is more reluctant to cancel departures in bad weather cities because those flights can wait on the ground, said Neil Stronach, vice president of operations. The result is occasional long waits.

"We don't cancel to manage departure banks unless there's bad weather in the place we're going," he said.

ExpressJet, the airline that operates that Continental Express flight, says Syracuse is the closest airport it serves to Newark -- so close that Flight 2450 has a hard time getting a space in the stream of airplanes headed for Newark. "Unfortunately, the way the air-traffic-control system is designed, flights from close proximity get unfairly penalized," said spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas.

Another factor that affects extremely long sitting: Airlines are less likely to cancel flights that move on to other hubs in their systems rather than turn around and go back to the same airport they just left. If a plane is going out and back to the same hub, canceling the trip just impacts those two flights. But if the aircraft is scheduled to move on to numerous cities, canceling that flight could disrupt many more customers. As a result, aircraft that aren't scheduled for "turns" are more likely to sit and wait long periods before the flight gets canceled. (Unfortunately there's no way for travelers to get this information about their flight.)

Extreme delays are rare, but the problem escalated dramatically last year, becoming the focus of Congressional hearings and legislation. The number of flights with taxi-out times of more than three hours totaled 1,598 for the first 11 months of 2007, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (The agency hasn't released December data yet.) That's a 23.4% increase over the entire year of 2006, and December 2007 clearly added to the total for 2007 with widespread delays over the holiday season.

It's important to note that those 1,598 flights are only part of the extreme-delay problem. BTS doesn't record flights that land and then sit for prolonged periods, or flights that divert to another airport and sit.

What we do know is that of those taxi-out problems for planes waiting to take off, they often are bunched up at a few big hub airports.

JFK had 316 flights that waited more than three hours to take off last year after pushing back from a gate, according to BTS data. Newark had 202; Dallas-Fort Worth had 159, and Philadelphia, New York LaGuardia and Chicago's O'Hare each had 100 or more. Many big airports performed much better, such as Atlanta with only 31, Boston with 20, Detroit with six and Minneapolis with five.

Certain routes out of those problematic airports found themselves more often in taxi-out jail than others. From JFK, 60 of those 316 flights that sat more than three hours were bound for either Los Angeles or San Francisco. Planes flying the other direction didn't have the problem -- not a single flight in Los Angeles or San Francisco waited more than three hours to take off for JFK.

Why? To be sure, there are lots of flights from JFK to LAX and SFO, both heavily traveled routes. But airline officials say they are loath to cancel those high-revenue flights, often full of business travelers. Better to wait it out than try to rebook a big planeload of people.

Other routes with repeated problems: New York LaGuardia-to-Chicago O'Hare had 20 flights sit waiting more than three hours, and 14 in the other direction; Philadelphia-to-O'Hare also had 20 flights with taxi-out times greater than three hours, and five headed from O'Hare to Philadelphia.

Certain airlines also were more willing to wait than cancel. JetBlue Airways customers were the most likely to suffer taxi-out more than three hours, based on the percentage of the airline's flights that suffered three-hour taxi-out nightmares, followed by Continental and ExpressJet.
JetBlue also had the longest average delay last year, according to FlightStats. When a JetBlue flight was late, it arrived 67 minutes past its scheduled arrival time at the gate on average, according to FlightStats.

JetBlue says JFK, its home base, struggled with lengthy delays last year on stormy days, and delays were exacerbated for flights that departed in the early evening when international flights to Europe were also trying to take off.

Flight-crew and curfew issues can affect JetBlue's departures, a spokesman noted. Flights destined for airports like Long Beach and San Diego in California, both of which have late-night curfews, can move ahead of other aircraft, leaving others to wait longer, so that the airline doesn't get fined for curfew violations, spokesman Bryan Baldwin said. "We might prioritize different departures based on a variety of factors," he said.

JetBlue also says it has shifted its strategy to cancel more flights in advance to reduce long delays rather than trying to operate every trip, no matter how long it takes