Word: delta
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...while the West has bloomed on the river's bounty, exploding populations and a prolonged drought have had an ominous effect on the Colorado itself. The river that used to surge into the Gulf of California, depositing ruddy-colored silt that fanned out into a broad delta of new land at its mouth, hardly ever makes it to the sea anymore. The once mighty Colorado fizzles into a trickle, its last traces evaporating in the heat of the Mexican desert...
...Think of Delta Air Lines, and the hubs that come to mind are Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Dallas. But now Delta customers can dream of more exotic destinations: Brussels, Vienna, Rome, New Delhi, Moscow. Last week Delta snapped up most of what's left of failing Pan Am, collecting the pioneering carrier's transatlantic routes serving Europe, Asia and Africa, its sprawling Frankfurt hub, its northeastern shuttle and other assets -- for just $260 million, about what the shuttle alone would have cost a year ago. Even as Delta was announcing its coup, United Airlines was circling over the remains...
Swaggering through the ruins, a handful of robust carriers are picking over the choicest goods and becoming worldwide powerhouses in the process. Says Russell Thayer, an airline consultant who once headed Braniff: "Consolidation has reached critical mass in the industry. The big three -- American, United and Delta -- are going global at a tremendous rate, while Northwest is scrambling to catch up with them. Within a year, we may be down to four or five large carriers...
...struggling carriers have shed weight in their struggle to stay aloft, American, United, Delta and Northwest (combined U.S. market share: 70%) have moved to expand into new markets by snapping up the best parts. American and United are pushing into Latin America. In the transatlantic market, where TWA and Pan Am have steadily lost ground over the years to heavily subsidized European flag carriers, American, United and Delta will present much more formidable competition. One measure of their clout: each airline is larger than all the European carriers combined...
...same time, though, travelers in some key U.S. markets clearly stand to gain from the consolidation. The northeastern corridor linking Washington, New York City and Boston, for example, has been served for the past few years by two financially shaky shuttle operations. That is about to change. Delta's purchase of the Pan Am Shuttle gives the Atlanta-based airline 52% of that traffic. Now Northwest is negotiating an agreement with Donald Trump's bankers, who have taken over his shuttle as part of his financial restructuring. In the coming months, travelers in the busy corridor probably will have...