Airline Profile: Northwest Airlines
One of the world's largest airlines, Northwest operates from U.S. hubs at Detroit, Memphis and Minneapolis/St.Paul, and from overseas hubs at Amsterdam and Tokyo.
A member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance, Northwest and its travel partners serve more than 900 cities in excess of 160 countries on six continents, while feeder services are provided by regional carriers including Compass Airlines, Mesaba Airlines and Pinnacle Airlines under the "nwa airlink' banner.
History
Founded as Northwest Airways in 1926 to transport mail between Minneapolis/St Paul and Chicago, passenger services began the following year.
On 15 July 1947, Northwest pioneered the great circle route to Asia.
Northwest merged with Republic Airlines in 1986 and became privately held by a group of investors in 1989, but returned to the public stock market (Nasdaq) in March 1994.
Northwest and KLM launched their first joint service in 1991, at the start of what became the world's first major airline alliance.
Northwest applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 14 September 2005 and filed a joint Chapter 11 plan of reorganisation with the US bankruptcy court on 12 January 2007. It exited Chapter 11 on 31 May 2007.
Regional subsidiary Compass Airlines launched services on 2 May 2007, operating as Northwest Airlink.
On 15 April 2008 the airline agreed to merge with Delta Air Lines, the merged carrier would retain the Delta identity.
The merger received Department of Justice approval on 29 October 2008.
Fleet
- 126x Airbus A320 family aircraft
- 32x Airbus A330
- 25x Boeing 747
- 59x Boeing 757
- 65x McDonnell Douglas DC-9
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