Delta Airlines Timeline
Delta Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15, 2005 and emerged from it after 19½-months later. Here are key dates in its 79-year history.
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Delta starts its first passenger flights over a route from Dallas to Jackson, Miss., via Shreveport and Monroe, La.
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Delta headquarters moves from Monroe, La., to Atlanta.
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Delta stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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Northeast Airlines merges with Delta. Delta becomes a major carrier in New York and Boston, with direct routes from New York and New England to Florida. Delta begins operating the Boeing 727.
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After Delta suffers financial losses, employees raise $30 million in payroll deductions to purchase the first Boeing 767, named "The Spirit of Delta."
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Delta merges with Western Airlines; becomes the fourth-largest U.S. carrier and fifth-largest in the world. First trans-Pacific service begins: Atlanta to Portland, Ore., to Tokyo. Ronald W. Allen becomes chairman and CEO.
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Delta purchases substantially all of Pan Am's trans-Atlantic routes and the Pan Am Shuttle, making this the largest acquisition of flights in airline history. Delta becomes a global carrier.
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Delta returns to profitability in the fourth quarter.
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Leo F. Mullin is named president and CEO.
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Terrorist attacks leave airlines reeling. Substantial losses at the major airlines follow.
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Delta eliminates roughly 16,000 jobs, or 21 percent of its workforce compared to pre-Sept. 11 levels, by mid-2003.
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Delta announces pay cuts for top executives, including 10 percent cuts for CEO Mullin and president Fred Reid.
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Delta proposes 22 percent pay cut for pilots and canceling of pilot pay raises due over the next year, according to union. Company later asks for 30 percent pay cut and other concessions. Pilots, meanwhile, offer a 9 percent cut and to forego a 4.5 percent raise due in May 2004.
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Revelations emerge that amid the layoffs at Delta, a select group of executives received millions in company payments to a program to protect their pensions even in the event of a bankruptcy.
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Amid uproar over executive perks, Delta cancels the final payment to participants of its supplemental executive retirement plan and discontinues the program.
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Mullin tells AP more job cuts possible if airline doesn't get pilot concessions.
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Mullin says he will step down as CEO on Jan. 1, and as chairman that April. Company says Mullin will be replaced by board member and industry veteran Gerald Grinstein.
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Delta warns in regulatory filing that it may file for bankruptcy if it doesn't get deep concessions from pilots.
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Source says Delta has hired a law firm specializing in restructuring to discuss options in case airline files for bankruptcy.
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Pilots up concessions offer to airline, say they are willing to take a 23 percent pay cut.
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Grinstein tells pilots the survival of the company depends on at least $1 billion in concessions from them, says their proposal for up to $705 million in cuts is inadequate.
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Delta says it will cut up to 7,000 more jobs over 18-month period and shed its Dallas hub as part of a sweeping turn-around plan aimed at saving the airline.
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Delta, pilots reach tentative agreement on pay cuts and other concessions that will save airline $1 billion a year. Around same time, Delta gets $1.1 billion in fresh financing from creditors.
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Delta blames persistently high fuel prices as it reports a $2.2 billion fourth-quarter loss.
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Delta warns it will record a substantial loss for the final nine months of the year and says it will need to file for bankruptcy if its cash reserves fall too low or some of its lenders demand immediate payment of its debts.
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Delta CEO says in memo that current transformation plan, which includes cutting annual costs by $5 billion by the end of 2006, is not enough to save the struggling carrier.
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Delta files for bankruptcy.
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The airline and its 6,000 pilots miss the deadline to
reach a deal on long-term pay and benefit cuts.
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Delta pilots vote 94.7 percent in favor of authorizing a strike. The vote gives union leaders the authority to set a strike date. They didn't set a date immediately and gave no indication exactly when they might act. An arbitration panel must decide by April 15 whether to void the pilots contract.
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Delta negotiators for its pilots union reach a tentative agreement on long-term pay and benefit cuts that could avert a strike. The Atlanta-based airline's 5,930 pilots have to ratify the undisclosed deal; If they don't, the company's contract rejection request could resurface, as could the union's strike threat. Delta says a strike could put the airline out of business.
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A group that represents some retired Delta pilots asks a bankruptcy court judge to reject the carrier's latest wage concession agreement with its pilots union. The Delta Pilots' Pension Preservation Organization said that if the agreement reached last month is approved, it would set the stage for drastically reducing certain pension benefits of the airline's 5,800 retired pilots.
A hearing is scheduled for May 31 -- the same day Delta's active pilots are scheduled to complete their
voting on the agreement.
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A bankruptcy judge approves the $280 million-a-year concessions agreement between Delta and its pilots, hours after rank-and-file pilots agree to the deal.
The agreement runs through 2009 and takes effect June 1.
It replaces an interim pact agreed to in December and includes an initial 14 percent pay cut and assurances the pilots union won't fight any company effort to terminate the pilots' pension.
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Delta asks a bankruptcy court judge to allow it to use IBM rather than its own employees to maintain its computer systems. If approved, a Delta spokeswoman said the outsourcing agreement would result in "substantial savings." About 200 of the 1,800 employees in the Delta technology unit would be affected, though it's unclear how many might lose their jobs.
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With higher ticket prices and fuller planes driving up revenue, the airline says it turned its first
adjusted profit in nearly six years during the second quarter -- despite a wider loss of $2.21 billion.
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A bankruptcy judge approves an agreement between Delta and a group of retired pilots that paves the way for the airline to pay $9 million in pension obligations.
The deal was presented ahead of a hearing that begins Sept. 1, when Delta will ask the court to terminate its obligations under qualified pension plans. The Delta Pilots' Pension Preservation Organization withdrew earlier objections to reach a deal with the airline in late July.
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A bankruptcy judge grants Delta a deadline extension to file its plan of reorganization as it tries to emerge from Chapter 11 by the middle of 2007. The nation's third-largest airline now has until Feb. 15, 2007, to file a plan and until April 16 to solicit approval for the plan from creditors, according to a court document dated Oct. 31, 2006. It is the third extension Delta has sought.
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Delta Air Lines officials say they will review
the proposal from Tempe-based U-S Airways, but they will push ahead with a goal to file a reorganization plan by February. U.S. Airways has made an $8 billion hostile takeover offer for the Atlanta-based airline. Delta has said repeatedly thatit isn't interested in a merger.
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Delta Air Lines Inc. and the Pension Benefit
Guaranty Corp. reach a settlement involving the carrier's
request to terminate its pilots pension plan that will award the government's pension insurer an unsecured claim of $2.2 billion.
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Delta Air Lines' pilots union said it plans a massive rally to show its opposition to U-S Airways' hostile
takeover bid. The union said it will lobby members of Congress to block the deal. U.S. Airways says it won't back down, and its shares rose sharply.
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Delta Air Lines files a five-year reorganization plan with
the bankruptcy court that calls for it to emerge from Chapter 11 as a stand alone company. The carrier says it has rejected Tempe-based US Airways' unsolicited offer to buy Delta in a hostile bid now worth $8.4 billion.
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In its latest monthly operating report with a federal bankruptcy court, Delta says its loss in November was reduced to $49 million. The company lost $181 million during the same month last year.
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CBS News confirms a report that Northwest Airlines and Delta are involved in ongoing talks about a possible joint operating plan once the two carriers emerge from bankruptcy. While neither airline would comment, aviation analysts say Delta would probably prefer to emerge from bankruptcy as a stand alone carrier, but a deal with Northwest would be preferable to a hostile takover by US Airways --which raised its bid to takeover the airline.
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The city of Los Angeles says in a bankruptcy
court filing that Delta Air Lines' reorganization plan cannot be approved because of undue authority it gives the company to reject some leasess. The city made the comments in an objection to the disclosure statement to Delta's reorganization plan.
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Delta Air Lines Inc.'s official creditors committee said Wit will support Delta's standalone reorganization plan, prompting US Airways to withdraw its hostile bid to buy Delta. Delta's committee said in a statement its decision was reached after a lengthy review of both Delta's proposal and US Airways' proposal, which the committee said it rejected.
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Delta Air Lines Inc. says unofficial voting results show its reorganization plan has received enough creditor support to be approved, paving the way for it to emerge from bankruptcy protection on April 30. The Atlanta-based airline said in a statement that the results show that more than 95 percent of ballots cast were in favor of the plan.
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Delta Air Lines Inc. emerges from bankruptcy
protection as an independent carrier after surviving a
hostile takeover bid during a 19½-month reorganization that saw it eliminate jobs, cut costs, restructure its fleet and focus more on international flying.
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Delta Air Lines says it will offer voluntary
severance payouts to roughly 30,000 employees - more than half its workforce - and cut domestic capacity by an extra 5 percent this year as part of an overhaul of its business plan to deal with soaring fuel prices.
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Delta and Northwest announce a merger plan that would create the world's largest airline. The plan calls for the combined airline to be named Delta, remain based in Atlanta, and be run by Delta CEO Richard Anderson. If the share-swap becomes final, Delta shareholders will get a bigger company, while Northwest shareholders would get a premium for their stock. But the airlines have unions to cajole, politicians to placate, and antitrust regulators to convince if the merger is going to happen.
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The Justice Department approves the Delta-Northwest merger, clearing the way for the creation of the world's largest airline. Federal regulators said the merger would likely benefit consumers without substantially reducing competition. Another hurdle remained, however: a federal lawsuit seeking to block the deal. Trial is set for Nov. 5 in San Francisco.
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Credits:
The Associated Press, Delta Airlines
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