List of airline mergers and acquisitions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article lists airline mergers and acquisitions, with a brief history of each:

  1. Air West
    • 1968 - Pacific Air Lines (originally Southwest Airways), Bonanza Air Lines, and West Coast Airlines merged to form Air West
    • 1970 - Howard Hughes purchased Air West and renamed it Hughes Airwest
  2. Delta Air Lines
    • 1924 - Started as Huff Daland Dusters
    • 1928 - Huff Daland Dusters was purchased by C.E. Woolman and renamed Delta Air Service after the Mississippi Delta
    • 1972 - Delta purchased Northeast Airlines
    • 1984 - Established the Delta Connection (ASA, Comair, Skywest, ...)
    • 1987 - Delta merged with Western Airlines
    • 1991 - Purchase of Pan Am's European routes, and acquired Pan Am's shuttle, forming what is today Delta Shuttle
    • 1996 - Delta Express began service, ended November 2003
    • 2003 - Song began service, ended May 2006
    • 2008 - Announced merger with Northwest Airlines. If approved Delta would become the world's largest carrier by passenger traffic
  3. Hughes Airwest
    • 1970 - Howard Hughes purchased Air West and renamed it Hughes Airwest
    • 1980 - Republic Airlines bought out Hughes Airwest
  4. Northeast Airlines
    • 1972 - Delta purchased Northeast Airlines
  5. Northwest Airlines
    • 1916 - Founded by Col. Lewis Patenaude, under the name Northwest Airways
    • 1927 - Began flying passengers
    • 1949 - With its new routes to the far east, re-branded itself as Northwest Orient Airlines
    • 1986 - Purchased Republic Airlines, and dropped the word Orient from its brand name
  6. Pan Am
    • 1991 - Delta Air Lines purchased Pan Am's European routes, and acquired Pan Am's Shuttle
  7. Republic Airlines
    • 1979 - Formed by the merger of North Central Airlines and Southern Airways
    • 1980 - Bought out Hughes Airwest
    • 1986 - Northwest purchased Republic Airlines
  8. Western Airlines
    • 1925 - First incorporated as Western Air Express by Harris Hanshue
    • 1926 - Western's first flight took place
    • 1928 - Reincorporated as Western Air Express Corp.
    • 1930 - Purchased Standard Airlines (subsidiary of Aero Corp. of Ca. founded in 1926). WAE with Fokker aircraft merged with Transcontinental Air Transport to form TWA.
    • 1934 - Western Air Express broke off from TWA and briefly changed its name to General Air Lines, returning to the name Western Air Express after several months
    • 1941 - Western Air Express changed its name to Western Air Lines, which was later altered to Western Airlines
    • 1967 - merged with Pacific Northern Airlines
    • 1987 - Delta merged with Western Airlines (kept Delta name)