Easy for you to say...

NW basically has no infrastructure in DTW besides the actual airport ops for DTW. They can't support an airline NW's size. A combined NW/DL? Forget it. As for ATL becoming the new HQ? I hardly think DL is ready to just accept an airline the size of NW into its ATL operation. Their IT/IS infrastructure alone is years behind NW's. What about the multitudes of other areas of an airline? A combined NW/DL would be too large for DL's ATL HQ.

There's no good argument out there for MSP being disbanded, and I'm not just saying that because it's my home airport. I do question some of the DTW members, though, as to why they think it'd be just so easy to de-hub MSP. Yes, your airport is newer and has superior facilities. We get that. But it's a lot more than the terminal facilities that makes up an airline.