Delta wins battle to abandon NWA headquarters

by Dick Saunders and Jim Spensley
published Feb. 9, 09

The Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) raised enough questions to delay a decision for three weeks, but voted 11-1 at a special meeting Feb. 4 to allow Delta Airlines to vacate Northwest Airlines’ Eagan corporate headquarters without major penalty.

 However, in the process, MAC may have, in our opinion, put the state
into a weakened position as a major transcontinental airline hub for the long term.

Exactly how MSP will be impacted if the current world recession continues or worsens over the next several years, as a growing number of economists are hinting, is a question.

The changes at issue until last week lay in the 1992 loan agreement that used MAC’s top-ranked credit ranking to float $250-million in bonds for Northwest Airlines while NWA was standing at bankruptcy’s door. The new agreement extinguishes MAC’s right to force repayment of the bonds if NWA had given up, for any reason, its Eagan offices before the bonds expired in 2022.

As part of its acquisition of NWA in October 2008, Delta agreed to pay off the balance of $183 million projected to be remaining on the loan by 2016, six years ahead of schedule.