Interim operating plan OKd by FAA

Remember the Delta-Northwest merger? It’s been pretty quiet for the past couple of months, but it moved forward on two fronts last week. First, the Federal Aviation Administration said it has accepted the plan submitted by the two carriers for interim operations during the transition to a single operating certificate. Delta’s senior vp-maintenance operations John Laughter called the acceptance by the FAA “a significant milestone in our efforts to bring together our two airlines.” The plan submitted to the FAA “outlines the methodology, processes, tools and timing to maintain the safety of the day-to-day operations and to achieve a single operating certificate over the next 15 to 18 months,” Delta said. The second big step forward was the almost unanimous approval of the merger plan by stockholders of both companies last week. The proposed merger would give Northwest stockholders 1.25 shares of Delta stock for each Northwest share they own. Delta shareholders also approved an amendment that will let the company give an equity stake to U.S.-based employees after the merger is finished. During the integration process, Northwest will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta, but after operations are fully combined, it will be a single company named Delta, with headquarters in Atlanta. One sour note after the stockholder approvals last week came from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at Northwest. The union said that the two airlines won’t be able to combine their operations without “adversely impacting customers, suppliers, employees and shareholders, because of the two airlines’ vastly different corporate cultures and mismatched aircraft fleets.” The biggest hurdle remaining for the merger is approval by the federal government’s antitrust regulators. The companies are reportedly eager to secure approval while the pro-business Bush Administration is still in office, on the assumption that the deal is more likely to win easy approval now than after a new team takes over the executive branch.