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Delta Air Lines is a major American airline headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The airline operates an extensive domestic and international network serving all continents except Antarctica. Delta Air Lines and its subsidiaries operate over 5,000 flights every day and have approximately 80,000 employees. The airline's hub at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic (over 91 million passengers per year) and number of landings and takeoffs, it is also home to Delta TechOps, Delta's Technical Operations Center. Delta is the sixth-oldest operating airline by foundation date, and the oldest airline still operating in the United States. Delta Air Lines is one of the four founding members of the SkyTeam airline alliance, the other three being Korean Air , Air France, and Aeroméxico. The loyalty program for Delta Air Lines is SkyMiles. Delta Air Lines was the world's largest airline in terms of fleet size in 2011 and scheduled passenger traffic in 2012, and the second-largest in terms of revenue passenger-kilometers flown in 2012. Regional service for the airline is served by Delta Connection.
Delta Air Lines was created 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. Delta Air Corporation owned the plane (now in the Southern Museum of Flight). The company moved to Monroe, Louisiana in 1925. Collett E. Woolman, one of the original directors, purchased the company on September 13, 1928, and renamed it Delta Air Service. It began carrying passengers in late 1929. The single passenger sat in a chair placed in the bin where the pesticide was usually kept. The first routes were between Southeastern states.
Delta grew through the addition of routes and the acquisition of other airlines. They 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 logo of Delta Air Lines, originally unveiled in 1959, is reminiscent of the swept-wing design of the DC-8 airplanes. Often termed as the “widget” logo, the current version consists of two 3D triangles.
The current Delta Air Lines is the result of many airline mergers over a period of more than 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 was kept). 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.
Predecessor carriers forming the current Delta Air Lines include:
Delta's corporate headquarters is housed in a corporate campus on the northern boundary of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, within the city limits of Atlanta. This location has served as Delta's headquarters since 1941, when the company relocated its corporate offices from Monroe, Louisiana to Atlanta. In addition to hosting Delta's corporate headquarters, Hartsfield-Jackson is also the home of Delta TechOps, Delta's Technical Operations Center, which is the airline's primary maintenance, repair and overhaul arm and the largest full-service airline MRO in North America, specializing in engines, components, airframe and line maintenance.
Delta maintains a large presence in the Twin Cities, with over 12,000 employees in the region as well as significant corporate support functions housed in the Minneapolis area, including the company's information technology divisional offices.
Delta's current livery, "Upward & Onward", uses four colors. It features a "widget" (triangle) on each aircraft's vertical stabilizer to refer to Delta's origins as a carrier in the Mississippi Delta.
The previous livery, "Colors in Motion", used eight colors. Delta introduced its current branding in 2007 after it emerged from bankruptcy. The switch from the previous livery to the current livery removed one day from each aircraft's painting cycle, allowing the airline to save money. The airline took four years to repaint all of its aircraft into the current scheme, including aircraft inherited from Northwest Airlines. The triangle logo, known internally as "the Widget", was introduced in 1959. It was not part of the "Colors in Motion" livery, but returned with the current livery.
Delta operates 4,932 flights per day. Delta Connection operates 2,533 daily flights.
Delta Air Lines is one of the few airlines that flies to all six inhabited continents. Others are British Airways, Emirates, Korean Air , Qantas, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, and United Airlines.
Inherited from the Northwest-KLM relationship (which is older than any of the three major airline alliances including SkyTeam itself), Delta has a transatlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia. The program coordinates transatlantic operations, including ticket pricing, schedules, capacity, and revenue. On January 27, 2012, the European Commission launched an investigation into the impact of the joint venture on competition on the routes that it covers.
Delta Air Lines has the largest Boeing 757 fleet of any airline
As of January 2013, Delta operates a fleet of more than 700 aircraft manufactured by Airbus, Boeing, and McDonnell Douglas. The carrier operates the largest fleets of Boeing 757, Boeing 767, and Airbus A330 aircraft of any US airline. Delta operates the largest fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-88 and McDonnell Douglas MD-90 aircraft in the world. Prior to its 2008 merger with Northwest Airlines, Delta's fleet was made up of solely Boeing and McDonnell Douglas aircraft; Airbus aircraft from Northwest joined the fleet after the merger.
As of March 31, 2012, the average age of the Delta fleet is 15.8 years, excluding grounded aircraft and those operated by contract carriers. The oldest aircraft in the fleet are the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-50s with an average age of 34 years and the McDonnell Douglas MD-88s with an average age of 21.7 years. To replace the DC-9s, MD-88s, and older A320 and 757-200 aircraft in their fleet, Delta began discussing narrowbody replacement plans with manufacturers such as Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier in early 2011. On August 22, 2011, it was announced that Delta placed an order for 100 Boeing 737-900ER aircraft and deferred an order of 100 small narrow-body jets until 2012.
On May 22, 2012, Delta announced an agreement to lease 88 Boeing 717s from Southwest Airlines that Southwest inherited from its acquisition of AirTran Airways as a replacement for the remaining DC-9s and replacement for some 50 seat regional aircraft. Deliveries should begin in mid-2013 replacing some of Delta's over 250 CRJ100 and -200 aircraft.
There have been over a dozen attempted hijackings which resulted in no injuries and the surrender of the often lone hijacker. These incidents are not included. The following are notable hijackings because of fatalities or success in forcing the aircraft to fly to another country:
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