| History: |
Delta Air Lines traces its origin
to Huff Daland Dusters, which was founded in 1924 in Monroe, Louisiana.
In 1928, Huff Daland Dusters was purchased and renamed Delta Air
Services after the Mississippi Delta, where its route structure lie. In
1941, Delta moved its headquarters from Monroe to Atlanta, to center
itself along its new route network that connected Chicago and New
Orleans to Florida and Ohio. On May 1, 1953, Delta merged with Chicago
and Southern to expand routes in Midwest and in 1955 Delta incorporated
the hub and spoke route system. Delta began DC-8 service in 1959 and
Convair CV-880 in 1960. The DC-8's swept-wing design inspired Delta to
come up with a new logo which incorporated a new red, white, and blue
triangle logo, the "widget." By 1970, Delta was an all-jet airline.
In 1970, Delta purchased five Boeing 747s to serve its new long-haul
high density routes. However, Delta could not fill the 747's capacity
and sold them a few years later. Shortly thereafter, Delta leased a
small number of DC-10s as a stopgap until its order of the new Lockheed
L-1011 TriStars could be delivered. Delta purchased Northeast Airlines
in 1972 to strengthen its market share in the northeast, also
introducing the 727 to Delta's fleet. In 1973 L-1011 TriStar entered
service. In 1982, Delta took delivery of their first 767-200, named the
Spirit of Delta, which was paid for by voluntary contributions from
employees, retirees and Delta's community partners. The effort, called
Project 767, was spearheaded by three Delta flight attendants to show
the employees' appreciation to Delta for solid management and strong
leadership during the first years following airline deregulation. The
airplane remained the flagship of the Delta fleet until 2006, and was
repainted in a commemorative paint scheme and toured the country to
celebrate the airline's 75th anniversary in 2004.
In 1984 the company established its Delta Connection partnership linking
regional airlines to Delta hubs. In 1987, Delta merged with Western
Airlines of Los Angeles and absorbed its large hubs at Salt Lake City
and Los Angeles. In 1990, Delta introduced the MD-11 to its fleet.
Delta's most dramatic expansion came with its purchase of Pan Am's
European routes in 1991, including all north Atlantic routes and the
Frankfurt, Germany hub, shortly before Pan Am declared bankruptcy. The
purchase also included a small number of A310s that were retired after a
few years. Delta also acquired Pan Am's northeastern shuttle, taking
delivery of a number of Boeing 727s, later replaced by 737-800s. This
later became Delta Shuttle.By 1997 Delta began large expansions into
Latin America and in 1999 introduced the Boeing 777 into its fleet,
greatly increasing possibilities to longer non-stop services. 2000 saw
the creation of SkyTeam, a global alliance initially partnering Delta
with AeroMéxico, Air France and Korean Air. In an effort to further
simplify its fleet, Delta began to retire its trijets in favor of
twinjets, replacing the L-1011 with the Boeing 767-400 in 2001 and 727's
with 737-800's in 2003. Song began service on April 15, 2003 as a
low-cost Delta brand. Delta returned Song's aircraft into the mainline
fleet in May 2006, incorporating lessons learned to Delta aircraft.
Delta operated its last MD-11 flight on January 1, 2004, from Tokyo to
Atlanta and replaced them with 777-200ERs.
In 2004, Delta restructured in an effort to avoid bankruptcy, including
job cuts, expansion of Atlanta operations, reducing its Cincinnati
operation and closing its Dallas-Fort Worth hub. On August 15, 2005,
Delta sold Delta Connection carrier Atlantic Southeast Airlines to
SkyWest Airlines in an effort to increase cash and avoid bankruptcy.
Unfortunately these efforts proved too little and on September 14, 2005,
Delta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the first time in
its 76-year history |
