Delta Airlines History

A Brief History of Delta Airlines In the early 1900’s, the boll weevil was decimating cotton fields all across the southern United States. In 1916, Dr. Coan and Mr. Woolman discovered that a calcium arsenate powder eradicated the pests without harming the plant, however, they needed a more efficient was of dispersing the powder of millions of acres of cotton fields. After obtaining funding from Congress and two Army Jenny planes, the two began to experiment with the delivery system (Agricultural Appropriations Bill, 1924). In 1923, George Post’s plane was forced down in Tallulah, Louisiana, where Dr. Coan and Mr. Woolman were experimenting with crop dusting. Mr. Post become so fascinated with the idea that he convinced the company he worked

After the move, Delta began expanding its service and merging with competing airlines to eventually spread across the United States and the world. Chicago and Southern Air Lines merged with Delta in 1953, followed by Northeast Airlines in 1972, and Western Air Lines in 1987. During this expansion, Delta became the first airline to offer jet planes for passenger service when it added Douglas DC-8s to its fleet (Proctor, Machat, and Kodeta, 2010). It did not take long for Delta to embrace the jet and become an all-jet airline in 1970 with a fleet of DC-8’s that soon expanded to include DC-9’s, DC-10’s, , L-1011 Tristars, Boeing 727’s, and Boeing 747’s. In 1975, Delta expanded again, this time into cargo services with its Delta Air

The acquired transatlantic routes made Delta the largest U.S. transatlantic carrier, a title Delta still holds to this day. Almost a decade later, in 2000, Delta partnered with AeroMexico, Korean Air, and Air France to cream SkyTeam. SkyTeam, in its infancy, was able to offer 6,402 daily flights to 451 locations in 98 countries (SkyTeam, 2014). Only three years later, Delta started the largest codeshare agreement with Northwest Airlines and Continental Airlines, thus making SkyTeam the second largest airline in the world behind Star