Delta Airlines

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Before Delta
It all started in 1924, at Macon, Georgia and back then it was not called Delta. It went by the name of Huff-Daland Dusters. Its main purpose was for aerial crop dusting to fight against insect infestation on cotton fields. The idea of deploying chemical from above to treat the infestation problem was introduced by a government entomologist Dr. Coad. After a brief research period, a contract was awarded to Huff-Daland Manufacturing to design an aerial delivery method. Huff-Daland designed and produced duster biplanes based on the Petrel 5, which was used by the navy. In 1923, Mr. Woolman, an agricultural engineer came to Huff-Daland from The Department of Agriculture. Three years later the company moved to Monroe, Louisiana. Since the crop dusting business was periodic, Mr. Woolman looked for other ways to maintain their business practices. As a result, they decided to add Peru into the mix since the seasons were opposite. During his mission in Peru, he saw another opportunity to expand the company’s business, by providing passenger air travels service. After while things started to go down hill for the company due to the political change in Peru. As a result, Mr. Woolman sold most of the crop dusting equipment and some of the Air travel assets to Peruvian company (“Huff-Daland Duster,” n.d.).
The Renaming of the Company
In 1928, as the General Manager, Mr. Woolman and his two colleagues restarted their company and changed its former name from Huff-Daland Duster to Delta Air Services. A year later Delta was flying to Dallas, Jackson and Mississippi. Ten years after the start of crop dusting, Delta received a US Postal Service contract in 1934; the route was from Fort Worth to Charleston through Atlant...

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...been. The merger was facing antitrust review and on top of that the Northwest unionized pilots could not reach an agreement. In Oct 2008, an agreement was reached and all pilots from both sides received pay raises and Delta acquired Northwest Airlines for 2.8 billion dollars. This was considered one of the largest deals in the industry and made Delta number one in the world in terms of destinations (Anonymous, 2009).

Works Cited

(Anonymous) 2009 Delta and Northwest Merge, Creating Premier Global Airline. Retrieved from http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=216

(Adam Anderson, n.d.) Hoover’s Coverage: Delta Air Lines, Inc. retrieved from http://cobrands.hoovers.com/company/Delta_Air_Lines_Inc/rfccxi-1-1njhxk.html

Huff-Daland Duster: National Air and Space Museum. retrieved from http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19680235000

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