What's the rumor Northwest may be merging with Delta,

[Deja Q]

with Northwest subsequently packing up and leaving?

Should they be held accountable for the taxpayer money they'd received over the years?

[CatholicEdHead]

1. They should

Remember, the current Delta CEO is Northwest's former CEO. So there is a "golf-course" deal going on here. Anderson would then prefer to move the headquarters down to Atlanta.

I do think that the Justice Department has to rule on the legality of this anti-competitive move, but with the W Justice Department it should be a rubber stamp. :(

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Very unlikely that the MSP hub would go away, at least

according to the financial pundits. They say MSP makes too much money; Delta will want to keep it and DTW. The merged airline supposedly would be no smaller than the two separate airlines, so (they also say) there would be few job losses, at least on the operations end. Right now the pilots' unions are negotiating a merged seniority list, and if they can reach an agreement the deal will probably go through. Oberstar is trying to be sure the state doesn't lose jobs, but the DoJ probably won't stop it. In fact, it's doubtful that even a Democratic DoJ would stop it because there are so few overlapping routes. The deal with the airport was that if NWA moves its hub or headquarters away from MN they will have to pay back a big pile of money, but the new airline (Mega-Delta) will have no trouble handling that. Don't look for major changes in the near future, regardless what the deal is -- these things take a loooong time.