Delta and Northwest have created a new Web site to garner community support for the combined airline.

Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp.’s $17.7 billion merger agreement announced April 14 would create the world’s largest airline with an international reach surpassing what each carrier would likely have achieved on its own.

The new airline will be headquartered in Atlanta and keep the Delta name, continuing the international expansion strategy Delta accelerated after emerging from bankruptcy at the beginning of 2007.

Delta and Northwest’s international route maps are complementary.  While Delta has extensive service throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, it has been lacking in Asia, a strong market for Northwest.

While Delta’s inaugural service from Atlanta to Shanghai, China, launched March 30 was its first connection to China, Northwest has a hub in Tokyo and flies to the Chinese cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai.  Northwest also has routes to Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

That connectivity will be important as Asia grows in global economic influence and Atlanta looks to continue its ascension as a business center.

“Delta will probably do with Asia what it has been doing with Latin America from Atlanta, and that means Atlanta will increasingly become a gateway to Asia,” William Bogner, associate professor of managerial sciences in Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, told GlobalAtlanta.

In its press release announcing the merger, Delta said that the new airline would have executive offices in the current Northwest hub cities of Tokyo and Amsterdam, as well as New York, Paris, and the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. 

Throughout the talks, both airlines have indicated that consolidation will help combat rising fuel prices and slimmer operating margins that have plagued the industry recently, shuttering four smaller carriers in the past few months.

Delta’s press release emphasized how the new airline will promote “resilience” in a slowing economy and an industry that has shed more than 150,000 jobs and lost $29 billion since 2001. 

Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State’s Economic Forecasting Center, said the extent to which this is true depends on how high the combined airline can raise prices in the currently volatile economic situation. 

If demand doesn’t justify the price increase, an eventual scaling back of operations may be inevitable, he said.

The merger agreement is the fruit of more than three months of talks that had faced some turbulence over how competing personnel issues would be resolved at the combined company. 

Delta CEO Richard Anderson is set to occupy the same position at the combined carrier, while Northwest CEO Doug Steenland will take a position on its board of directors, and the rest of the 13-member board of the new carrier will be formed by a combination of executives from both companies.

No immediate job cuts are expected from the proposed merger, which will undergo a government approval process that officials hope will be completed by the end of this year. 

Dr. Dhawan said that net job loss is not a problem Atlanta should worry about.

“What we have dodged is the outright bullet that we would lose the entire headquarters,” Dr. Dhawan said.  And while net job losses might not be on the horizon, redundancies in employment operations will cause some shuffling of personnel, he added.

Because of that concern, both carriers’ pilot unions have squabbled over seniority issues, which will have to be resolved in the wake of the agreement.  

Delta said it has reached an agreement with its 6,000 pilots, while news reports have indicated that Northwest’s 5,000 pilots and many other employees are still dissatisfied with the terms of the deal. 

The agreement is by no means set in stone. 

In addition to the labor issues, the deal must be reviewed and approved by the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Transportation, and some officials, especially in Northwest’s current home in Minnesota, have vowed to fight the agreement.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said the announcement is “not the end of the process.”

“This is an announcement that comes with a lot of concern and anxiety for Minnesota, starting with the families and individuals who work for Northwest Airlines who are wondering what this means for their jobs and their economic security,” he said in a television statement.

But because of the airlines’ current route structures and the struggles facing the industry, there shouldn’t be too many legislative objections, Dr. Bogner said.

He added that the merger would be good for Delta and Atlanta, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport should become more of an international hub as a result of the consolidation. 

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue recently traveled on Delta’s inaugural service to Shanghai to begin his first business mission to China.

In a statement, Mr. Perdue said he is “proud that the airline created from this partnership will continue to call Georgia home.”