Feb 20, 2008 11:13 pm US/Central
Reality Check: NWA's Promises To Minnesota
(WCCO)
A merger between Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines likely won't happen until next week. Minnesota lawmakers are keeping a close eye on the talks because the state has a lot riding on Northwest; nearly half a billion dollars in public aid.
The company made a lot of promises to get that money. So is Northwest about to break those promises?
Northwest Airlines made those promises to Minnesota when the public bailed it out during tough times. Those are promises the giant air carrier may be about to break if it merges with Delta Air Lines.
"Northwest Airlines has had its corporate headquarters in Minneapolis-St. Paul for over 75 years," CEO Doug Steenland told the legislature in 2005. "And we intend to be headquartered in Minneapolis-St. Paul for the next 75 years."
IN FACT...
Northwest promised to keep its world headquarters in Minnesota in return for hundreds of millions of dollars in public aid. However, if Northwest merges with Delta, Delta says the new world headquarters will be in Atlanta, Ga. not Minnesota.
That also would mean about 1,000 jobs at NWA's Eagan headquarters could disappear.
There's MORE.
As part of a 1992 bailout package, Northwest promised to build a maintenance facility in Hibbing with 500 jobs and three airline hangars in Duluth with 1,000 jobs. It didn't happen.
The REALITY is different.
Northwest renegotiated the deal a couple of years later, canceling the Hibbing plant, hiring only 350 in Duluth, a facility they later closed, and building a reservation center in Chisholm.
Here's what you NEED TO KNOW.
Delta's CEO, Richard Anderson, was an executive at Northwest for 14 years when some of these deals were being made. Now Minnesota is looking to him to keep Northwest's promises to the state.
That's Reality Check. 
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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