The merger drums are beating ever louder - even though neither airline has explicitly acknowledged that it is negotiating a combination to create the world's biggest airline, with one of its hubs in Salt Lake City.
The boards of Delta and Northwest were said to be in an emergency meeting Tuesday at which a deal might be approved, The New York Times reported.
Not so, according to The Wall Street Journal, which said the meetings were set for today to vote on a merger agreement, even though neither carrier has reached a settlement with the Air Line Pilots Association on a common contract for Delta's 6,300 pilots and Northwest's 4,500 aviators. Although pilot approval isn't technically required, winning them over would ensure a smoother transition to consolidation.
"The boards are meeting today. I expect an announcement probably on Friday," a pilot with ties to the union told The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday.
Lane Beattie, CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, expects an announcement today.
"We do anticipate that within 24 hours we will have an announcement," Beattie said. "Let me just say that reliable sources are telling me that things are coming to a head."
A second pilot, acting as a conduit for information passing between the union and its members, told The Tribune a deal could come today. Or it could be 10 days off.
No one really seems to know. Those close to the talks who claim a deal is imminent also say negotiations could collapse. Several outstanding issues still need to be resolved, they say.
Pilot seniority is a big hurdle. As of Tuesday, no deal between Delta and Northwest pilots over how to integrate seniority lists had been reached, despite reports last week that suggested the opposite was true. Northwest pilots, angry at their treatment while the carrier was in bankruptcy last year, are said to be dragging their feet. As a group, Delta pilots reportedly are younger than Northwest's pilots, and they fear their seniority would be diluted.
Seniority means everything to pilots. It governs when and where a pilot works, which aircraft the pilot will fly and how much a pilot earns. In the event of layoffs, seniority would determine who stays and who goes. And if a pilot is furloughed or quits, seniority doesn't travel to other airlines.
Another issue said to have been a factor in the negotiations was who would run the combined airline. But according to a report in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune citing unnamed sources, Northwest CEO Douglas Steenland is not expected to retain a leadership post. In this scenario, Delta CEO Richard Anderson, who ran Northwest from 2001 to 2004, would be the top executive.
Others who have been briefed on the negotiations say there would be few, if any, reductions at the front-line employee level. Cuts would be mostly at senior levels.
Delta has said that if it merges with another airline, it wants to retain the Delta name and keep its headquarters in Atlanta. The only thing the carrier and its executives have said publicly is that its board is considering strategic options, including consolidation with another carrier.
Delta spokesman Anthony Black on Tuesday said the company would have no further comment on the company's previous statements.
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 Delta and Northwest would create the world's largest airline in terms of traffic. That's before any divestitures regulators might require them to make. There also has been speculation about a possible combination of UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and Continental Airlines, which would be a bigger airline than Delta-Northwest in terms of traffic.
The clock is ticking to get any deals accomplished quickly, some industry observers say. That's because they 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.
pbeebe@sltrib.com
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* THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this story.
