Delta is Changing!
 

My partner works for Delta and he was informed that the Headquarters and CEO office has hired high level security for the day of the announcement and the week thereafter. They have set up counseling services and top administrators are suggesting that long term employees review retirement options. He was told by his senior execs that the company as it exists today will no longer exist a year from now.

I am very anxious to hear what happens. Doesn't look good.

Key phrase being "as it exists today," and I think that's a sure bet. UA as it existed in 2002 is gone today too.

But I don't think DL plans to disappear... just evolve. We'll have to wait and see for 9/8.

Well, Grinstein has previously been quoted as saying that the Delta of 2005 will be radically different from what exists today. With words like that, I would expect some shifts in the overall operating model, and not just "normal" operating changes such as cutting flights here and there or downsizing a hub or two (those are things that airlines will do on an operational basis without fundamentally changing their basic business concept).

I think that it is clear that they intend to make change Delta from a "legacy" carrier into something that can can compete in the new century... it will be a company that operates fewer aircraft types for sure. I have felt for a long time that domestic FC was an obsolete concept (all the best customers expect to get it, but not to pay for it) , but perhaps a premium cabin will continue to exist, but with reasonable "A" type fares rather than the extreme F fares of the past.