Shareholders OK Delta-Northwest Merger

Shareholders of Delta and Northwest voted nearly unanimously today to approve the airlines' merger, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. With shareholders in agreement, federal antitrust regulators must now approve the deal. A Justice Department decision is expected late this year, but labor issues remain. Dozens of workers protested today outside the Northwest shareholders’ meeting in New York, shouting, “What do we want? No merger!”

If the deal goes through, Northwest shareholders will receive 1.25 shares in the new firm, to be called Delta, for each Northwest share they own. The airlines’ boards support the merger, but the union that represents Northwest’s workers has opposed the merger, questioning the risks to job security when the firms’ labor forces are integrated.
(More Delta Air Lines stories.)