Vliegen met Delta Airlines

Delta is de maatschappij waarmee ik eind deze maand naar Florida hoop te vliegen mits Ivan mijn vakantiebestemming dusdanig heel laat dat het mogelijk is. Bij CNN las ik echter nog meer verontrustend nieuws en ditmaal niet over Ivan maar over Delta. Wat nu precies de gevolgen van het bericht zijn weet ik niet maar het stemt me niet vrolijk.

Bron: CNN business
Delta tumbles on bankruptcy worries

Bondholders withhold debt buyback OK, curbing No. 3 carrier's room to maneuver outside Chapter 11.
September 10, 2004: 12:00 PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc. said Friday it hit another bump in its effort to avoid bankruptcy as bondholders refused to give it permission to buy back certain debt it needs restructured, sending its shares down almost 6 percent.

The nation's No. 3 airline, which earlier this week unveiled plans to cut up to 7,000 jobs, had sought permission to buy back equipment trust certificates and pass-through certificates, both of which are secured bonds used to buy airplanes.

In a brief statement, Delta (DAL: down $0.17 to $3.75, Research, Estimates) said not receiving the required consents affects its ability to include these debt instruments in possible future restructuring steps.

Delta, based in Atlanta, said it was working to find solutions that will allow for an out-of-court restructuring.

Failure to get the required consents marks another big hurdle in the airline's restructuring drive after a group of investors faulted the company last month for leaving them in the dark about its restructuring plans.

The group -- calling itself the Committee of Senior Secured Aircraft Creditors of Delta Air Lines, which collectively owns more than $1.4 billion of Delta's debt -- had indicated that they needed more time to study Delta's restructuring plans.

Asking for permission was widely seen as a first step toward restructuring the company's debt outside of bankruptcy court. Delta has some $20 billion of outstanding total debt.

It began seeking for bondholder consents on Aug. 18, with an initial deadline of Aug. 31.

Moeilijk inderdaad om de gevolgen te overzien. Zo zit United Airlines net als Delta Air Lines ook al een paar jaar in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Als ik het bericht goed lees willen de toezichthouders meer tijd om de plannen van Delta te bestuderen om uit die Chapter 11 te komen... Het lijkt mij niet dat hierdoor je vlucht in gevaar komt; het zou dan allemaal wel heel snel moeten gaan wil dat gebeuren.

Inderdaad zal Chapter 11 bankruptcy jouw vlucht niet in gevaar brengen. Als een bedrijf daarin zit, betekent dat, dat ze zich dusdanig moeten reorganiseren, dat ze weer rendabel worden. Een bedrijf blijft wel gewoon open, maar moet grote beslissingen eerst voorleggen aan een speciale bankruptcy rechtbank.
Pas als je leest, dat een bedrijf in Chapter 7 bankruptcy gaat, moet je je echt zorgen maken, dat betekent nl. dat het bedrijf zal sluiten. Dat is wel een paar keer met luchtvaartmaatschappijen (vooral charters) gebeurd, maar is met een groot bedrijf als Delta niet waarschijnlijk.

Bij Delta was ook nog sprake van een uitloop van Piloten. Velen gingen met vervroegd pensioen omdat het zo slecht met Delta ging. Ik heb in ieder geval nog een vliegticketverzekering afgesloten voor het geval het mis zou gaan met Delta. Ondertussen is er weer nieuws over een andere maatschappij die onder chapter 11 komt te staan.

US Air files Chapter 11
Talks with labor unions for $800 million in concessions go nowhere.
September 12, 2004: 8:14 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - US Airways Group filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday for the second time in two years.

The Chapter 11 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Alexandria, Va., came after the airline was unable to obtain $800 million dollars in annual cost cuts from its workers' unions. The airline had warned during talks the concessions were needed to avoid the bankruptcy filing.

"Customers should not notice any changes to flight operations or customer service because of this filing," the airline said in a statement on its Web site. "All bookings will be honored and there are no changes to our ticketing policies."

Bruce Lakefield, US Airways' president and chief executive, said in a statement that failure to obtain concessions heightened the need for the company, the seventh largest airline, to conserve its cash and proceed with its plans to overhaul the business and become a low cost carrier.

US Airways said it needed to cut costs by $1.5 billion in order to make its business to operate more like its discount rivals. The centerpiece of the cost-cutting blueprint, which it had hoped to get voluntarily, was $800 million in concessions from labor unions.

But the airline failed to get another penny from pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and other unions, who yielded nearly $2 billion to help the company out of its first bankruptcy.

"We have made the difficult but necessary decision to complete this process with the help of the court," Lakefield said. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding gives a company protection from its creditors while it reorganizes its business operations under court supervision.

The airline said its existing marketing and vendor relationships will continue. US Air said it received court permission to continue its dividend miles program.

The filing comes one day after the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 hijack attacks, which accelerated a cyclical softening of business into the industry's worst-ever financial crisis.

But US Air had been one of the most troubled of the major airlines even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Its plans to be purchased by United Airlines parent UAL Corp. had been blocked by federal antitrust regulators earlier that year. That had left the airline with a difficult challenge to reshape itself and cut costs even before the terrorist attacks.

The attack hit the airline harder than perhaps any other. Its hub at Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. stayed shut longer than any other airport, and the concerns about flying and security delays at airport hit its shuttle business, severely limited its most profitable business carrying passengers between Washington, New York and Boston.

Dit is uit de Naples Daily News van vandaag


Delta auditor expresses doubt about airline's ability to continue
By HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press
September 16, 2004

ATLANTA — Delta Air Lines Inc. revised its annual report on Wednesday to reflect its growing financial difficulties and the possibility of seeking bankruptcy protection "in the near term."

The airline said that due to recurring losses and the increased risk of a Chapter 11 filing, its independent auditor, Deloitte & Touche, has reissued its report "to raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern."

The announcement came as chief executive Gerald Grinstein backpedaled from his earlier hope that an agreement with pilots on stemming early retirements could be worked out by week's end.

In a news release, Delta said that since filing its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the year that ended Dec. 31, "significant events have occurred which have materially adversely affected Delta's financial condition and results of operations."

"These events, which have been reported in Delta's subsequent SEC filings, include a further decrease in domestic passenger mile yield and near historically high levels of aircraft fuel prices," the statement said.

In a separate announcement, Delta said it had offered to exchange $680 million of its debt with new notes secured by $1.3 billion worth of debt-free aircraft, flight simulators and flight training equipment. The offer was made to holders of $2.6 billion in various forms of Delta debt.

Earlier Wednesday, at a Commerce Club speech to Georgia business leaders, Grinstein was asked if his timeline still stood for reaching a deal with pilots on the early retirements.

"Probably not," Grinstein responded.

Asked why, Grinstein said, "We're in the middle of a discussion and I think they're going to be responsive, but it's now Wednesday and the pilots are scattered and it has to be reviewed by a lot of people inside the organization and you've got a weather condition coming into this airport, so all of those things tell me that it will be delayed probably beyond this week."

Grinstein then immediately left the building and did not take further questions from reporters.

Earlier in his speech, Grinstein said that regarding the company's larger request for $1 billion in concessions from pilots he is optimistic an agreement can be worked out. He gave no timeline, but was blunt in his assessment of what's at stake.

"What we've asked of the pilots is a significant concession," Grinstein said, adding, "They've developed a lifestyle and an expectation about what is going to happen and they're wrestling with it. My conviction is that we will get that resolved and I hope it will not be too far into the future, because these are really difficult times."

Asked for a response, union spokeswoman Karen Miller said, "We can only be part of the solution, but are committed to helping Delta in its recovery. We believe that we should focus on our efforts at the bargaining table and do not want to negotiate in the press."

Delta fears that its pilots could jump ship en masse because they are worried about their pensions amid United Airlines' threat to terminate its employee retirement plans. Several hundred Delta pilots have retired early in recent months, and more have threatened to, Grinstein has said.

Delta pilots who retire can elect to receive 50 percent of their pension benefit in a lump sum and the other 50 percent as an annuity later, regulatory filings show.

On Monday, Grinstein told reporters at an airline conference in New York that he was hopeful an agreement on that specific issue could be worked out by the end of the week.

The pilots union had balked at that timeline. Although it has said as recently as Tuesday that it is willing to negotiate with the airline, the union said an agreement on the pilot retirement issue would be contingent on further assurances from the company of protection for the pilots retirement plan.

Atlanta-based Delta said in a statement that the company's contract proposal to the pilots union "would preserve the pilots accrued pension benefits, including the pilots ability to receive money in a lump sum, and is designed to create a sustainable retirement plan going forward."

The union has consistently disputed that assertion.

"Delta has not guaranteed to protect the pilots' accrued benefits," said union spokeswoman Karen Miller.

Grinstein has said previously that the nation's third-largest airline would be forced to file for bankruptcy if it didn't get its pilot retirement issue under control by the end of September.

In his speech Wednesday, Grinstein seemed to suggest that he feels an agreement on the retirement issue can be worked out before the end of September deadline, though he cut his thought short in mid-sentence before being definitive.

"I have high hopes, even expectations, that will be solved and that that threat that was very imminent by the end of this month is probably — I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that, but I expect that it is going to be resolved."

Delta has warned that without pilot concessions it might have to file for bankruptcy.

In trading Wednesday, Delta shares closed up 1 cent at $4.10 on the New York Stock Exchange.

:? Het zou toch wel zeer triest zijn als nu ook Delta Airlines zou verdwijnen :cry:

In de loop der jaren zijn toch al een aantal airlines verdwenen waar ik nog wel herinneringen aan heb: Pan-Am, Eastern en Braniff bijvoorbeeld.

Gelukkig heeft de CEO nog wel vertrouwen in de onderhandelingen en 'verwacht' hij er wel uit te komen met de piloten.

We zullen zien...

Delta zit overgens in de "SKy Team Airline Alliance", waar Air France en de KLM ook in zitten... :cry:
http://www.skyteam.com/EN/index.jsp

Ik denk niet dat Delta verdwijnt. Ze moeten eens goed gaan reorganiseren en misschien zoals United veel meer moeten gaan werken met e-check in. Het valt mij bij Delta altijd op hoeveel mensen ze op de grond hebben rondlopen.

IK heb ook een vermoeden dat in het Skyteam de transatlantische vluchten herverdeeld gaan worden zodat er geen overlappingen meer inzitten en dat ze de prijs van de tickets op pijl kunnen houden en misschien wel iets verhogen.

Ik vind Delta wel een van de betere Amerikaanse luchtvaartmaatschappijen.

Ik denk ook niet, dat Delta zal verdwijnen. US Airways zit ook al jaren in de problemen en vliegt nog. Zolang ze Chapter 11 bescherming krijgen is de kans, dat ze op een verstandige manier herstructureren vrij groot.
United heeft dat inderdaad ook gedaan en doet het beter.
Maar het blijft een moeilijke tijd voor de mammoet luchtvaartmaatschappijen hier in de VS, vooral nu er steeds meer kleine, niet vakbond gebonden, low budget maatschappijen opstaan.

Je ziet hier in Europa toch hetzelfde verschijnsel. Er komen steeds meer low fare airlines.

De volgende stap is dat de low fare airlines de feeder worden van de grote jongens die dan alleen nog maar trans atlantisch en trans continentaal vliegen.

Schiphol wil niet voor niets een terminal bouwen om de low fare maatschappijen af te handelen.