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Fayette nervous about Delta impact

By J. FRANK LYNCH

jflynch@thecitizennews.com

In a recent article, an airline industry trade magazine jokingly called Peachtree City a “pilot ghetto” in reference to the large number of Delta Air Lines pilots who live here.

A story in Saturday’s New York Times questioned the “psychological impact” a Delta bankruptcy would have on Fayette County, home to more than 10 percent of the company’s Atlanta workforce.

News last week that Delta had come up with a plan to avoid bankruptcy brought relief to local officials, even if it means Delta pilots may have to take a 30 percent pay cut.

Delta’s 7,000 pilots Monday began 10 days of voting on a new union contract proposal that would cut their salaries by nearly a third. With the highest-paid pilots earning an estimated $300,000, that would mean a loss of about $100,000 annually.

The potential impact of that loss of income on the local economy remains to be seen, however.

More than 3,500 Delta employees live in Fayette, with an annual average salary of more than $93,000, according to Brian Cardoza of the Fayette County Development Authority.

That means more than 7 percent of Fayette County’s entire employed population works for Delta, Cardoza said.

Even with those daunting figures, the business community is still taking a “wait and see” approach, said Virginia Gibbs, president of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce.

“We need to take enough time to really ascertain what the fallout is, if any, and then hopefully we can respond accordingly,” said Gibbs. “It’s really just sort of a wait and see, to be ready to try and do something to support folks if we’re needed.”

Doris Cash, a retired professor of economics and finance at Clayton College & State University, said there will “of course be some impact.”

Cash is a leading expert on the Southside economy, and particularly the impact of the airline industry on Atlanta’s Southside.

“It’s really going to depend on whether those persons were aware this might happen and put their financial houses in order,” said Cash. “If you’ve been living to the hilt anyway, knowing we were going down this road, then they may have some serious problems.”

In theory, said Cash, Delta employees have been cutting back for months and putting money away in savings accounts, which will also lessen any impact on area small business owners who are most likely to feel the effects.

“Given their income levels they should have some adequate reserves, though I can’t say for sure,” said Cash. “And if so, the impact on the bowling alleys, pizza places and movies will be less.”

What’s for certain, said Cash, is that Delta’s situation is nothing like the demise of Eastern Airlines in 1992.

When Eastern was faced with mounting debts and union pay squabbles, its top managers didn’t just declare bankruptcy, Cash said, they shut down and liquidated the company. The unexpected move threw thousands of Southside residents, including many Fayette Countians, out of work permanently.

The company’s abrupt departure from Atlanta, where it practically split the market share with Delta at the time, devastated Peachtree City especially.

“People talked about it, but they didn’t believe it would happen,” Cash recalled about the possibility Eastern would go belly-up.

“I remember going to a cocktail party and there were several Eastern employees there and they thought the company was playing chicken and it would be impossible for them to go bankrupt,” she said.

“Delta is not going to liquidate, just restructure. They will be protected from creditors.”

The tentative pilot pay cut agreement was key to Delta narrowly avoiding bankruptcy last week. The proposal, reached by union leaders after 15 months of negotiations, could save the airline $1 billion in expenses.

Also last week, Delta executives announced $600 million in new financing from American Express. And on Monday, the company said it had secured a deal with G.E. Commercial Finance for another $500 million in financing.

The combination of refinancing deals and pay cuts could save the airline, the nation’s third-largest carrier.

Cash, who watched Delta grow with the region through nearly 30 years on the faculty at Clayton State, said she thinks the airline is on the right track.

“I’m very hopeful,” she said. “Delta has already made significant progress working out the debt with its largest lenders. Of course, you don’t know the future with the price of fuel like it is. And if we had another event like 9/11, I don’t know if they could weather that.”

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, had a profound and lasting impact on the industry, Cash said, that will never been reversed.

“We’re never going to be able to go back to the way things were before 9/11,” she said. “The world changed forever that day, and we can always say if we can escape another terrorist attack or if they they don’t hijack our oil reserves, Delta will probably be all right.”

And what’s good for Delta is good for the entire economy of the region, where the company has always been a good corporate citizen, Cash said.

“What made Delta so great for so many years was that everybody in the company felt like they were members of this mythical family,” Cash said. “But that stopped several years ago and that was the beginning of some of the problems. That was the thing that set them apart and gave them the real strength to weather the problems.

“I’m looking forward to the day that they’ve been greatly improved.”