I’m looking at flights from London to RDU and I get this quote from Delta..

Price per passenger: £216.00 (GBP)
Taxes/Fees: £264.16 (GBP)
Subtotal per Passenger: £480.16 (GBP)
Total for all passengers (1): £480.16 (GBP

Notice that the taxes are higher than the fare! hmmm… a 100+% tax….

Moral of the Story: Don’t rely on the fare only when comparing air fare because not including exorbitant taxes in their quotes is a trick airlines and travel sites use. When taxes can be over 100% of the fare, you’d think it was important to list by the “final fare”, not the fare without taxes…. but all is fare in the air fare wars…even if it means that the airlines/travel sites don’t care that they waste your time!

The US carrier Delta Airlines has completed a takeover of rival Northwest Airlines to create the world’s leading airline in terms of passenger traffic, overtaking Air France-KLM. The two companies were combined after the US justice department said it had no objections on competition grounds. The airline will be based in Delta’s home city of Atlanta. Over the next two years, Northwest’s uniforms and aircraft insignia will disappear and the group will be run by Delta’s chief executive, Richard Anderson. The enlarged airline employs 75,000 people and has annual revenue of $35bn (£21bn).
Andrew Clark in New York

Shares of both companies fall in early trading

By RUSSELL GRANTHAM, JIM THARPE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 04/14/08

Delta and Northwest airlines announced a $17.7 billion merger Monday night that will create the world’s largest carrier — headquartered in Atlanta with major hubs across the globe, including Asia and Europe.

The mega-airline, which will be called Delta, will have more than $35 billion in combined revenue and about 75,000 employees.

Officials with both airlines said there will be no layoffs of front-line employees nor immediate hub closings.

Shares of both companies fell in morning trading Tuesday after rising on premarket dealings. Northwest shares fell 59 cents, or 5.3 percent, to $10.63 in morning trading while Delta shares lost 98 cents, or 9.4 percent, to $9.50.

It is likely that the all-stock deal will unleash a series of other airline mergers that could be even larger, including a possible deal between United and Continental airlines.

“We believe that consolidation in the airline industry is inevitable, and we want to control our future,” Delta Chief Executive Richard Anderson said in a memo to employees. “Combining our companies creates an airline with the size, scale and global presence to weather economic downturns and compete long-term in the global marketplace.”

Anderson, who was CEO of Northwest from 2001 to 2004, will remain CEO of the combined companies. Other top executives of Delta also will hold key positions in the combined carrier, which still must win federal regulatory approval before it becomes a reality. Officials hope to conclude the deal before the end of the year.

Northwest CEO Doug Steenland, who will be on the new carrier’s board of directors, said he expects regulators to view the Delta-Northwest merger favorably in light of current economic conditions buffeting the industry. Four discount carriers have either shut down or declared bankruptcy in the last few weeks.

“With fuel at $110 a barrel, the airline industry looks a little different than it did a year ago,” Steenland said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Monday night, the merger already was drawing howls of protests from Northwest pilots, who were left on the sidelines after they could not agree with Delta pilots over combining their seniority lists. Seniority determines everything from who gets the most desirable routes to who gets to fly the biggest jets for the highest pay. The thorny issue will have to be resolved as the merger progresses.

“This agreement clearly disadvantages NWA [Northwest] pilots, both with respect to economic issues and seniority list integration,” Dave Stevens, chairman of the pilots unit based near Northwest’s headquarters in suburban Minneapolis, said in a statement.

The long-expected merger was propelled by growing pressure from record jet-fuel prices and a looming recession. Atlanta-based Delta and Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest painted the deal as combination of two of the industry’s strongest carriers that will move their international ambitions ahead by a decade in a single leap.

“You cannot replicate either of us,” Anderson said Monday in the AJC interview. “Northwest cannot replace Delta in South and Central America. And we cannot replace Northwest in Asia and Japan.”

The new airline will have domestic hubs in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Detroit, Memphis and New York City. It will have international hubs in Amsterdam and Tokyo.

There are no immediate plans to close any hubs, a fact that could aid the new carrier when it is brought before federal regulators for approval.

However, the likelihood that the combination — the largest ever proposed among U.S. airlines — could prompt link-ups among other carriers may prompt regulators to take a close look at Delta and Northwest’s plans.

The deal will face close scrutiny by U.S. Department of Justice antitrust regulators and opposition from powerful politicians, communities and possibly employee groups. U.S. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), who heads the House transportation committee and whose district could see the brunt of any job losses, has vowed to fight all major airline mergers as harmful to consumers and airline employees. Delta and Northwest still could be forced to abort their deal, or throw substantial assets overboard to get it approved.

The merger, which could bring capacity cuts and higher fares for customers, is also likely to be a boon for some competitors. AirTran Airways, Delta’s biggest rival in Atlanta, probably will try to snap up Northwest’s three gates at the Atlanta airport.

“We think it is a positive for the industry,” said AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson. “We’ll compete very effectively with the new Delta.”

The deal came after the boards of Delta and Northwest held separate meetings Monday.

It followed months of on-again, off-again talks. The carriers came close to announcing a deal in February that was later stalled when pilots unions at the two carriers failed to reach a related agreement on how to merge members’ seniority lists.

Monday, the carriers said they had instead reached a deal solely with Delta’s pilots union changing their contract to ease the merging of the two airlines. Pilots will get a 3.5 percent equity stake in the new company and a seat on the board under the pact, which will need to be ratified by the 6,000-member union. Non-pilot employees at both airlines will also share in a 4 percent equity stake, have job seniority protection and keep their existing pension plans, the companies said.

That leaves Northwest’s pilots union as the only employee group without a piece of the deal. Delta said it will also use “best efforts” to reach a deal with Northwest’s pilots union as well before the deal is finalized.

“A merger built on this unstable foundation is likely to put the combined airline in a position similar to that of US Airways,” said Stevens, the Northwest union chairman. US Airways and AmericaWest did not get pre-merger agreements from their pilots before they combined in 2005, and their pilots still are working under separate seniority lists and contracts, weighing down operational integration.

The merger won’t be final until the Justice Department signs off. That process could take months, and the outcome is far from certain.

“We are going to be running Delta as Delta for the rest of this year,” CEO Anderson said.

The companies said they will eliminate an unspecified number of redundant administrative positions. They also will have to meld flight schedules, similar computer systems and dissimilar aircraft fleets.

Delta President Ed Bastian said the carriers ultimately hope to realize $1 billion in annual gains through the merger, including about $700 million in additional revenue and $300 million to $400 million in cost savings. Delta said the combinations is expected to give a boost to its earnings in the first year — “excluding one-time costs” that could total $1 billion in cash.

The deal will be subject to approval by the two companies’ shareholders. Northwest’s shareholders will receive 1.25 shares in the new company for each old share, while Delta’s will receive one new share for each old share. The deal represents a nearly 17 percent premium for Northwest shareholders.

Notably absent from the agreement was Air France-KLM, an alliance partners with both carriers that until recently was expected to invest $750 million in the new company. All four carriers are key partners in the SkyTeam alliance, a agreement among several airlines to share routes and passenger privileges.

The Delta and Northwest executives said they no longer needed Air France-KLM’s participation because the airlines have adequate cash reserves.

“The combined entity is going to have $7 billion in liquidity at closing,” Anderson said.

However, some people familiar with the negotiations have said Delta’s and Northwest’s investors objected to their holdings being diluted by an Air France investment after the shares of both airlines plunged in recent weeks.

— Staff writers Dan Chapman and Rachel Tobin Ramos contributed to this article.

A couple of years I was surprised that Delta cut out it’s commission to it’s agents… sure, it’s nice to cut out those commissions that you pay those pesky little agents…. but when you have thousands of them across the country, that’s a powerful little sales force working for you(and you don’t even have to pay them unless they work!) No minimum wage, no benefits…. that is every employers dream, but not Delta’s…

As I said earlier they then began a little trick of selling their published tickets for less then agents could purchased their wholesale tickets from Delta. We still managed to hold on as there were still some net fares that we could sell for less than their published fares and some agents just added on a $20-25+ service charge.

It doesn’t look like the resourefulness of the the agents sat well with Delta. We’re like that piece of toilet paper stuck to the sole of your shoe that you can’t quite shake off… and so Delta has taken it’s next step: Force agents to sell land arrangements(either hotel, auto rental or cruises, tours etc..) if they want to sell a net fare ticket. They’ve followed the lead of Air France(the one with the really low fares that is being threatened with a law suit for illegally using it’s domestic income to subsidize it’s international flights) with this nifty little trick.

Logically, there is no reason for them to require the sale of a land package. It doesn’t increase their revenue one bit… and why would they care if an agent books a hotel for a client in Outer Mongolia? But their logic is that it will…. force more of those pesky agents to stop selling Delta’s tickets and cutting into their profits!

What will the result of this be? Delta will sell less tickets and since they’re operating on the verge of extinction, that’s a pretty dumb move.(think of what happens to a newspaper if they remove all their pay boxes from a city!)

I can’t help thinking that Delta won’t be around long as their downward spiral continues…. but on the other hand I’m also curios to know what huge bonuses the management who made these bad decisions will be recieving.

Delta is flexing it’s withering muscles and hoarsely roaring at it’s once respected agents…but I think I know who will have the last laugh!

I’m planning my trip to Greece in the fall and I decided to try to save some money and use my Delta Skymiles. I have 55,000 miles and need 50,000 for a round trip ticket from Raleigh/Durham to Athens. Sounds easy…

So I put in the dates and then there is a little note about the Skysaver and Sky choice. Sky saver only needs 50,000 while Skychoice needs 100,000 miles. They have a little description and explain that Skychoice are during the peak travel times. I punched in my dates and…. found a Skysaver fare to get to Greece on Sept 9(but I would have to leave RDU at 6am and spend 7 hours waiting for my flight). That’s ridiculous-especially since there are seats available on other flights with better departure and connection times. But…it’s a free ticket so I’ll take it….

Now for the return…whoops… no Skysaver seats available at all… in Sept or Oct…. and if you combine a Skysaver with a Skychoice the number of miles isn’t 75,000, but 100,000 so there’s no combining the two…. shoot… ok… let me try something else…

I tried a couple of 2 week periods in January(the worst time to go to Greece)…and… no Skysaver seats… and then I tried Feb… same thing…. I never realized that Jan/Feb traveling to Greece is a peak period…but then again, with the airlines you learn something new everyday… but the friendly skies are really the ripoff skies….that I do know for sure!(see Friendly Skies or Skyway Robbery)

The other thing that seems to be planted in the back of my mind was that when I signed up I was told that I needed 50,000 miles to fly to Europe…. where did the 100,000 miles come from? Let me guess… they’ll say they’re making more seats available so they’re offering then at higher miles, but with the fact that they have nothing available for 50,000 in Jan, my guess is that they cut back the number of 50,000 seats.

And Delta wonders why there is no customer loyalty…. because they have no loyalty to their customers…. if Delta goes under and disappears off the face of the earth and I lose my 55,000 miles before using them I won’t be distraught…. In fact it will be worth it!!

Not good news for Delta…. Sounds like they either have to talk to the pilots and come to an agreement or Delta will be gone…. not much room to negotiate if you can’t survive even a one day shutdown.

Delta Air Lines pilots voted in resounding favor yesterday to authorize union leaders to call a strike if an arbitration panel permits the carrier to reject the current pilot contract and impose a new, concessionary agreement. Of 5,799 eligible voters, 96.4% voted and 94.7% of voters supported a strike. “The results of this ballot will send the strongest message yet that if Delta’s senior executives are successful in their misguided attempt to reject our contract, we will strike,” MEC Chairman Lee Moak said in a letter to union members. “Our goal has not changed. We seek a consensual comprehensive agreement, but we will not be bullied into accepting the overreaching demands currently on the table.” The arbitration panel has said it will rule by April 15 whether or not Delta can reject its pilot contract if the parties do not come to an agreement in the interim. The airline has said it could not survive even a one-day shutdown. From ATWonline.com

Hi,
I purchased a delta ticket, via orbitz? Is that protected? It was, of
course, paid by a credit card? Any other protection tips. Trip is in
September. I hadn’t investigated enought before buying ticket and now I
hope it it’ll be okay. THanks. Nancy

Hello Nancy,

I’m not sure how much you can protect it…. I think that travel insurance may not cover Delta since they filed for chapter 11(or was it 13?)… either way, if they go under, someone may pick up their tickets and transport you to Greece… but that is based on space available.. your credit card may not protect you for a ticket bought so far in advance(you’ll have to check with your credit card company on that)…

I’m not sure how “protected” you will be with this ticket…but don’t worry about it too much, because you wouldn’t be very protected with any ariline anyway…none of them are doing very well and could go under at anytime…

Wish I could be of more help…but unfortunately, no one knows what will happen until it does!

I wouldn’t worry about it until you find out that there is a problem since there isn’t much you can do about it(short of paying the cancellation fee, purchasing a new ticket with another airline and then hoping that airline doesn’t have a bad year and go under!)

David

This is a handy piece of information that you may want to make a note of, no matter what anyone tells you. Check directly with the airlines when changes need to be made before going to the airport!

I recieved a notice from Delta that there were changes to the their flights so the tickets needed to be re-issued. Trying to save the client some trouble I called Delta to find out what needed to be done. I explained that I was a wholesaler and my client had a schedule change. The Delta worker was very polite and explained that the client needed to come down to the airport to have the tickets re-issued…in fact, they said it was not a major problem and since we’ve confirmed the changes over the phone they could just come to the airport early on their date of departure. I repeated again that we were wholesalers and were they sure that we didn’t have to reissue the tickets. No, I was reassured again…. just have them come down to the airport..

To make a long story short. The client went to the airport(luckily it was 2 months early and not on the morning of departure!). After spending 2 hours with the manager, the client was told that they had to have us reissue the tickets! A big change from the confident Delta employee who told me exactly what I needed to do in a few minutes!

So…if your agent tells you that you need to go down to the airport or to an airline office to change your ticket… check with the airline first to make sure that your agent was given the correct information…. and so that you hear it with your own two ears! That will leave less room for error(although the phone call to Delta may have resulted in the same instructions for the client to go to the airport!- but at least they’ll know who told them what!

If you’re flying to Greece, Delta in some ways is a great option! They are one of two airlines that fly nonstop from the US.(Olympic from NY and Delta from NY and Atlanta). On top of that they fly from so many US cities that it’s easy to get a complete Delta itinerary. Olympic codeshares with most of the major US airlines so you have to fly one airline to NY and then Olympic to Greece. The other European airlines only fly to and from the major US cities so you’ll have to fly one airline to the major US city and then fly to a European city and then on to Athens, which is a minimum of 3 flights in each direction!). Their taxes are also low in a market that has seend taxes double and almost triple in some cases due to fuel surcharges and security increases. see airline taxes

The down side with Delta is that they are not very financially sound and although we’re hoping that they’ll be around for a long time….they may not be! They are also one of the more expensive airlines to fly(which may be why they are having such financial troubles). This isn’t scientific, but they also seem to change their schedules more than other airlines, so that great connection you had turns into a nightmare when they cancel the connection. To illustrate: I booked a friend’s flight from West Palm to Athens with a Delta/Olympic codeshare. The connections were great until the day we went to issue the tickets Delta cancelled the JFK-West Palm connection so we had 2 choices: 1) overnight in NY and catch a flight the next morning; or 2: fly to Fort Lauderdale and take an airport limo home(an extra hour plus expenses!). Luckily he has a few airports near him…if you don’t, your options are more limited!