Northwest workers to don Delta garb after final merger approval

If the proposed merger is approved, Delta Air Lines plans to shift Northwest Airlines pilots, customer service employees and flight attendants to Delta uniforms on March 30. Delta’s proposed merger with Northwest has received shareholder approval and is awaiting clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice, which Delta expects by the end of this year.

Delta and Northwest pilots will both get newly designed hat brass and wings for their uniforms with a two-tone red triangular Delta “widget” logo. The rest of the uniform will remain essentially the same. The company decided to stick with the Delta uniform instead of designing a new one to save time and money and to speed the transition.

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Delta Air Lines

Delta and Northwest pilots will both get newly designed wings for their uniforms.

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Delta is eager for Northwest to take on the Delta brand quickly to show customers a consistent image of “what Delta looks like and what Delta feels like,” said Delta spokesman Kent Landers. Uniforms are “all part of the Delta brand. It’s as important as the paint on the airplanes and the signage at the airports.”

Richard Tyler, who designed the Delta flight attendant uniforms, met with Northwest flight attendants in Detroit last week.

Northwest flight attendants look forward to the change, said Rene Foss, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents Northwest flight attendants. While Delta, whose attendants are not unionized, has worked with the Northwest union on the shift to the new uniforms, “it’s a little bit different from what we’re used to” under a union contract, Foss said.

“In the past when we’ve moved to a new uniform, we’ve been able to have a very direct voice” in uniform design, Foss said. That’s “somewhat different from [Delta] saying, ‘Here’s what we designed.’”