Keeping your perspective grounded
Posted on April 15.2008 by Ben Byrne
The business news of the last 24 hours has been the merger agreement between Delta and Northwest. According news reports, the new merged airline will be the largest in the world and the merger could shake up the entire industry.
This got me to thinking: how big a company would the new Delta be compared the corporate giants we at Free Press deal with every day?
Well, thanks to some sleuthing from our intrepid policy coordinator Adam Lynn, we can tell you:
| Company | '06 revenue | '07 employees |
|---|---|---|
| Delta | $17.5 bn | 55,000 |
| Northwest | $12.5 bn | 34,000 |
| Delta+NWA | $30 bn | 89,000 |
| Time Warner | $44.2 bn | 86,000 |
| Disney | $34.3 bn | 137,000 |
| Verizon | $88.1 bn | 235,000 |
| AT&T (pre-BellSouth) | $63 bn | 189,000 |
| AT&T+BellSouth | $119 bn | 309,000 |
| Comcast | $25 bn | 100,000 |
Some pretty heady numbers there. And some food for thought: the largest airline in the world will be completely dwarfed by our largest telecom companies (not even half as large as pre-merger AT&T!), and just barely as large as our biggest media owners.
There seems to be a general awareness in the press that the new Delta/NWA merger will probably lead to higher fares. But when media or telecommunications companies combine, is there enough skepticism toward the mergers' effects?
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