Originally Posted by
readywhenyouare
They also had Delta and Continental in Skyteam for those who only wanted to make one connection to Europe. NWA also didn't have the appropriate aircraft to serve most of Europe. So yes you are right that they didn't really need to serve much of Europe. I was just arguing that Delta had a pretty nice international presence before the merger.
Exactly. Delta has a much better presence using their own metal to Europe, and also the remaining pieces of the FRA hub. NWA focused (and did well) in Asia, and relied on their SkyTeam buddies for Europe and beyond. And it worked pretty well. (And despite what others have said about NWA being a 'fire sale' to DL, I really don't remember it quite that way. I'd be interested to see information on that.