Delta Airlines: A Brief History

(from Wikipedia)


Delta Airlines was born as Huff Daland Dusters, Incorporated, an aerial crop dusting operation on May 30, 1924, in Macon, Georgia. Formed with a Huff-Daland Duster, the first true crop duster, the plane was deployed to combat the boll weevil in 1925 and was nicknamed "The Puffer" due to the clouds of white pesticides it emitted. Delta Air Corporation owned the plane (now in the Southern Museum of Flight). The company moved to Monroe in Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana, in 1925, and began carrying passengers in late 1929. The single passengers sat in a chair placed in the bin where the pesticide was usually kept. The first routes were from one Southeastern state to another. Collett E. Woolman purchased the company on September 13, 1928, and renamed it Delta Air Service, with headquarters in Monroe.[12]


Delta grew through the addition of routes and the acquisition of other airlines; it replaced propeller planes with jets in the 1960s and entered international competition to Europe in the 1970s and across the Pacific in the 1980s. The company logo of Delta Air Lines, reminiscent of the swept-wing design of the DC-8 airplanes, consists of two 3D triangles.[13]




The current Delta Air Lines is the result of many airline mergers over the past 80+ years. The most recent merger was with Northwest Airlines on October 29, 2008 and at the time formed the world's largest airline. After approval of the merger, Northwest continued to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta until December 31, 2009 when both carriers' operating certificates were merged (the Delta certificate survived).[14] Delta completed the integration with Northwest on January 31, 2010 when their reservation systems and websites were combined, and the Northwest Airlines name and brand were officially retired.[15]


Predecessor carriers forming the current Delta Air Lines include:


• Chicago and Southern Air Lines (formed in 1933, merged into Delta in 1953).[12] Delta flew under the carrier name of Delta-C&S for the following two years.[16]


• Northeast Airlines (formed in 1931, merged into Delta in August 1972)[12][17]


• Northwest Airlines (formed in 1926, merged into Delta in 2010. Also known as Northwest Orient Airlines from 1950-1989)


◦ Republic Airlines (formed in 1979, merged into Northwest Airlines in 1986)


▪ Hughes Airwest (formed in 1968 as Air West, name change to Hughes Airwest in 1970, merged into Republic Airlines in 1980)


▪ Bonanza Air Lines (formed in 1945, merged into Hughes Airwest (Air West) in 1968)


▪ Pacific Air Lines (formed in 1941, merged into Hughes Airwest (Air West) in 1968)


▪ West Coast Airlines (formed in 1941, merged into Hughes Airwest (Air West) in 1968)


▪ North Central Airlines (formed in 1946, merged into Republic Airlines in 1979)


▪ Southern Airways (formed in 1944, merged into Republic Airlines in 1979)


• Pan American World Airways (formed in 1927, portions of which were merged into Delta in 1991)


◦ Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean Airways (formed in 1927, merged into Pan American World Airways in 1928)


◦ American Overseas Airlines (formed in 1937, merged into Pan American World Airways in 1950)


◦ Aviation Corporation of the Americas/American International Airways (formed in 1926, merged into Pan American World Airways in 1928)


◦ National Airlines (formed in 1934, merged into Pan American World Airways in 1980)


• Western Airlines (formed in 1925, merged into Delta in 1987)


◦ Standard Air Lines (formed in 1927, merged into Western Airlines in 1930)