Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines have won the regulatory approvals they need to form the world's largest airline, but they still face the daunting task of combining two vastly different operations. Their success will be measured by how smoothly and rapidly the carriers can integrate-and whether streamlining can offset substantial merger costs. "The shouting and hoopla [of the merger announcement] is over, now all they've got to do is pull it off," notes ACA Associates analyst George Hamlin. The two carriers will look for gains as quickly as possible from rearranging their fleets and schedules within the combined network, although it will be several months before the real savings are seen. Competitors will be watching closely to see how much and where Northwest's network is cut as the process moves ahead. From the start, the carriers have vowed not to eliminate any hubs from the system, but "hub is an elastic term," as Standard & Poor's analyst Philip Bag-galey points out. (Like Aviation Week & Space Technology, S&P is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies.)
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