Delta announced yesterday they had no plans to leave Atlanta.
More fool them... they succumbed to the Georgia State Senate bullying?
It would cost billions of dollars and take years to move everything to a different airport. By the time the move was complete Delta would have joined TWA in the ash heap of history.
Nobody said anything about surrendering gates nor moving rolling stock...
The talk was about moving the Corporate Headquarters for Delta...
The Corporate Headquarters is irrelevant. The fuel is bought and needed where the planes are. You pay gasoline taxes based upon where you buy it, not based upon where your car is registered. As a Trucker, we filled up in Arizona before crossing into California, and it was a serious no no to buy fuel in California unless you were in danger of running out, a slightly bigger no no. The reason, the taxes were lower in Arizona, than in California.
Move the Corporate Headquartrs, and it won’t matter, because the planes will still be fueling up in Atlanta, and they’ll still be paying more in taxes.
Moving Corporate Headquarters would have deprived the State of Georgia of thousands of jobs, in retaliation for this arm-twisting by the State Senate.
Trouble is, since I wrote that, it has come to light (for me) that Delta will not move its headquarters, regardless of this attack by the State Senate.
They were based in the Mississippi "delta" in the 1920s and early 1930s, but moved to Atlanta in the 1930s, and have been there since.
For all intents and purposes, Atlanta is the only "home" that Corporate Headquarters has known within Living Memory, and, I'm sure, locally, they're branded that way.
Translation: it's in Delta's best interest to remain in Atlanta even though the State Senate attacked them for their severing of relations with the NRA.
An act of Corporate Heroism, followed soon thereafter by an act of Corporate Self-Interest bordering on political cowardice; but understandable, in any event.
Damned shame, that.