Delta and Northwest merger flying like lead balloons in hometowns

The proposed Delta-Northwest airline merger is reportedly a big turkey in the two airlines hometowns.

In all of Georgia, only 40 percent of people favor it with 45 percent opposed. They figure it will make the hellhole called Hartsfield even more diabolical.

And, remember, this year’s GOP convention is in Minneapolis. If GOP federal regulatory agencies approve the merger, with former Northwest jobs start getting shed, it will be UGLY in the Great White North.

And, shed those jobs will be! About 1,000 “Northwest” white-collar jobs could get whacked in the Twin Cities in the merger. Plus, more union-supportive Minnesotans of various stripes don’t trust Sunbelt-incorporated Delta a whole heck of a lot.

Plus, Northwest itself already has a history of not keeping promises made to the state of Minnesota:

In exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars of state aid, Northwest vowed to build an engine facility, maintain three hangars, hire thousands of workers, and keep the hub and headquarters in Minnesota. Most plans fell short or never materialized. Since 1992, more than 6,500 Northwest workers have lost their jobs. …

Northwest executives last week said they'd honor financial agreements with the airport authority and the state. Gov. Tim Pawlenty, though, said he'd consider reworking the bond and loan deals with a newly merged airline.

Later, Pawlenty said the merger could make the state issue an immediate call on $245 million in state-backed bonds.

Beyond that, financial details of the merger already have Northwest pilots bitching at their Delta opposite numbers. Employee turmoil is a great way to smash two companies together.

Sidebar: One complaint about Matt Towery’s article — the first link. claims metro Atlanta is 5 million.

WRONG.

Try closer to 3 million.

What did he do, include the whole state of Georgia as “metro Atlanta”? Throw in Chattanooga?

I’m in D/FW... we're just a little over 6 million, and I KNOW Atlanta isn't that close in size.

Update: Boosted and expanded from comments, per a person who claims metro Atlanta is more than 5 million people, or 5.27 million, to be more precise.

I may have downsized Atlanta a bit, but even with a pretty generous definition of “metro Atlanta,” it’s still straining to hit the 4-million mark.

Per my Rand-McNally (which says most recent Census estimates, so I'm assuming 2005 mid-decade), here we go.

I did a very broad 13-county definition of metropolitan Atlanta:

Bartow, Cherokee Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, Dawson, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton, Forsyth, Gwinnett, Hall, Paulding counties. Note — that includes the Gainesville area.

Total population? 3,649,259.

Even if those are 2000 Census numbers and not 2005 estimates, and I allow a 10 percent increase over eight years, that’s still just 4.01 million now. (And I know that, Sunbelt state and all, Georgia isn’t growing THAT fast. D/FW adds 100,000 a year. Even if we give Atlanta 70,000 a year, over eight years, and assume the 3.6 million is from 2000 and not 2005, that is at most 4.2 million today.)

Sorry, ma’am, but Atlanta just ain’t that big. There’s not a single 1 million-population county in the entire metro Atlanta area. That alone should tell it ain’t that big

Note — my 13-county area does NOT include Athens, 70 miles away, or Macon, 84 miles away, or Dalton, 91 miles away. I’m not being facetious when I say, if you want to do that, then I can make Dallas-Fort Worth have more than 7 million people instead of the roughly 6 million it actually has.

In comparison to Atlanta, the 12 counties which I see making up Dallas-Fort Worth — Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Hood, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall, Tarrant and Wise counties — have a population, per the same Rand-McNally, of 5,606,792.

Sorry, Peach Staters, but that’s about 2 million more than Atlanta, for better or for worse.