About Delta Airlines

Delta Airlines is one of the largest united states based airlines with headquarters in Altanta Georgia. Delta operates an expansive domestic and international network, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

Delta's primary hub is in Atlanta Georgia, but also operates hubs in Cincinatti, Kentucky, New York (JFK), and Salt Lake City. Delta's hub in Atlanta is the busiest airline hub in the world!

Delta's Early History
Delta was origionally founded in 1924 as the world's first areal cop dusting fleet, Huff Daland Dusters. The company was renamed Delta Air Service, after the mississippi delta, when it was purchased by C.E Woolman in 1928.

After a brief termination of service in 1930, Delta restarted passenger service in 1934 with a route from Charelston, SC to Fort Worth Tx with stops in Columbia, SC, Atlanta, Birmingham, and Meridaina along the way.

In 1941, Delta moved it's headquarters from Monroe to Atlanta, and in 1953 Delta purchased Chicago & Southern Air Llines and flew under the name Delta C&S for the following two years.

Delta in the 1970's and 1980's
In 1970 Delta purchased 5 boeing 747s to service new long-haul routes, thus entering the wide-body jet era. The initial route was from Los Angeles to Altlanta as well as flights to London Heathrow Airport utilizing interchange agreements with Pan Am. When the economy turned south, delta decided to sell the 5 Boeings, and instead lease 5 DC-10s from United Airlines.

In 1972 Delta purchased Northeast Airlines to strengthen it's share of the US Northeast Market. Delta contiued to grow in the 70s and in 1979 became the first arline in the world to board one million passengers in one city in one month.

In 1981 Delta launched it's first frequent flyer program, later renamed the popular SkyMiles program.

In 1984 Delta behan offering the nation's first air-to-group telephone system, Airfone, and in 1986 Delta was named The Official Airline of Walt Disney World.

In 1987 Delta merged with Western Arilines of Los Angeles and took over the large hubs in Salt Lake City and LA.

Delta in the 1990's
In 1991, Delta acquired Pan Am's Euopean routes, including all north Atlantic routes except Miami to London and Paris, and the Frankfurt Germany Hub. This purchase gave Delta the largest tranatlantic flight network and made delta the largest US transatlantic airline in terms of passengers carried and number of flights operated.

In 1997 delta began large expansions into Latin America and the Caribbean. Also at this time Delta began a technology enhancement effort introducing Kisoks and gate information displays.

Throughout the 90's, delta maintained a secondary hub in Portland for it's Asia operations. Destinations included Bangkok, Fukuoka, Hong Kong, Manila, Nagoya, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo. Delta was one of the airlines targeted in the failed Operation Bojinka plot: the conspirators planned to bomb a Delta MD-11 flying from Seoul to Bangkok via Taipei on January 21, 1995. Today, all Asia operations from Portland and Los Angeles have ceased. Asian service is offered from Delta's Atlanta and New York � JFK hubs to Mumbai, India; Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; and Shanghai, China

In 1999, Delta was a founding partner of the online travel agency Orbitz originally began by a group of several major U.S. airlines, which was purchased by Cendant in 2004

Delta in the 2000's
In early 2004, Delta was struggling to avoidd bankruptcy. Delta announcd a major restructuring that included job cuts and an aggresive expansion of it's Altanta operations, adding over 100 new flights and creating Atlanta as a super-hub.

In 2005 Delta closed its forth busiest hub in Dallas Fort Worth. In order to help try to save Delta, the pilots agrred to a 32.5% reduction in pay rates.

In January 2005 Delta introduced SimpliFares, cutting some of the most expensive fares by 50% nationwide and capped one-way domestic fares at $499 in coach and $599 in first class. By July of 2005 Delta was forced to raise these caps by $100 due to rising fuel costs.

On August 15, 2005, in an SEC filing, Delta announced that it had finalized a deal to sell Delta Connection carrier Atlantic Southeast Airlines for $425 million in cash to SkyWest Airlines in an effort to obtain money to avoid bankruptcy. Analysts called the move a desperate one, estimating ASA's worth at around $700-$800 million � a price which SkyWest would not have been willing to pay.

On September 14, 2005, Delta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the first time in its 76-year history. The company cited high labor costs and record-breaking jet fuel prices as factors in its filing. At the time of the filing, Delta had $20.5 billion in debt, $10 billion of which accumulated since January 2001.

On September 22, 2005, Delta announced the acceleration of restructuring activities, targeting an additional $3 billion per year in cost reductions by 2007. $970 million of this amount was to come from debt relief, lease and facility savings, and previously commenced fleet modifications. Non-union workers' salaries were to be reduced by a minimum of 9% across the board, with a 15% reduction for executive officers and a 25% pay cut for CEO Gerald Grinstein. In December 2005, the Delta pilots agreed to an additional temporary 14% cut in pay, piggybacking onto the 32.5% taken at the beginning of 2005. This cut was made permanent with the ratification of an agreement in June 2006. Additionally, the company planned to lay off between 7,000 and 9,000 of its 52,000 employees

During the later part of 2006 and early 2007, US Airways attempted to acquire Delta Air Lines, but the offer failied when Delta's major creditors opposed the deal. The size of the deal was to be around $8 billion according to bloomberg. In Janurary of 2007, USairways raised the bid by 20% to 10.2 billion, this offer too was rejected.

On April 30th, 2007, Delta emerged from Bankruptcy protection as an independent carrier. Upon exiting from brankruptcy, Delta announced a 50% increase in operations at the LA Airport, thus establishing LA as delta's second west coast hub and new potential Asian gateway with a total of 99 daily departures.

Delta continues to be a growing sucessful operation today!