Delta Air Lines, Inc.

▪ American company

      American airline incorporated on Dec. 31, 1930, as Delta Air Corporation, which adopted the current name in 1945. Engaged initially in agricultural dusting (crop duster) operations in the southern United States and in Mexico, it progressed, especially after 1934, to transporting passengers and cargo throughout the southeastern United States, with links elsewhere in the continental United States and overseas. Headquarters are at Atlanta.

      The Southern crop-dusting service began in 1924 as an operation of a New York airplane manufacturer. In 1928 the operation was sold to a group of Louisiana businessmen and became Delta Air Service, which inaugurated passenger service the following year and in 1930 incorporated as Delta Air Corporation. The man most responsible for guiding the company was Collett Everman Woolman, who was vice president and general manager (1928–45), president (1945–65), and chief stockholder (at his death in 1966).

      During the 1930s two other airline companies arose that would one day merge with Delta: Chicago and Southern Air Lines, Inc. (C&S), and Northeast Airlines, Inc. C&S was founded in 1933 as Pacific Seaboard Air Lines. In 1934 it secured a U.S. mail-carrying route from Chicago to New Orleans and was thus incorporated on Dec. 3, 1935, as Chicago and Southern Air Lines. Expanding its routes throughout the Mississippi River valley and to the Caribbean, it merged in 1953 with Delta.

      Northeast Airlines was founded in 1933 as Boston and Maine Airways, and in 1940 the airline was renamed Northeast Airlines. By 1944 it was flying the important New York–Boston route, along with other routes in the Northeast. It merged with Delta in 1972.

      In 1987 Delta acquired Western Air Lines, Inc., (Western Air Lines, Inc.) which had a strong route system in California and the far western United States. In 1991 Delta became part owner of bankrupt Pan American (Pan American World Airways, Inc.) World Airways, acquiring the latter's routes to Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia in the process. Delta continued to expand with the purchase of Atlantic Southeast Airlines in 1999 and Comair in 2000. In 2005, however, it filed for bankruptcy protection and was subsequently reorganized. Three years later, amid rising fuel prices and a slowing economy, Delta announced that it was merging with Northwest Airlines (Northwest Airlines, Inc.). The new airline would be the largest carrier in the world. In September 2008 Delta and Northwest shareholders approved a deal. The following month, after the U.S. Department of Justice declared that it did not have any antitrust objections, Delta completed its $2.8 million acquisition of Northwest.

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