Northwest Airlines Receives Court Approval To Exit Bankruptcy

Northwest Airlines Corporation (OTC: NWACQ.PK) announced today that it has received final court approval of its Plan of Reorganization, positioning the airline to exit bankruptcy on May 31.

Judge Allan L. Gropper of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York signed the order confirming Northwest’s Plan of Reorganization. On May 9, Northwest announced that 98.4 percent of the dollar amount of claims that voted and 96.9 percent of the airline’s creditors who voted, approved the Northwest plan.

Northwest expects that it will emerge from Chapter 11 once all closing conditions of the Plan have been met and the company’s $750 million new equity rights offering has been funded.

“We are pleased to have completed our restructuring successfully. We are now focused on emerging from Chapter 11 as a strong, publicly traded company, which will provide excellent service to our global customer base,” Doug Steenland, Northwest Airlines president and chief executive officer, said.

“I want to thank our customers and creditors for their understanding and cooperation during the past 20 months as we completed the restructuring process. Most importantly, I want to thank our employees for their hard work and sacrifices that helped Northwest attain its goal of repositioning the airline for long-term success. I am pleased that we plan to share with our employees some $1.6 billion in claims payments and anticipated profit sharing through 2010.”

Steenland continued, “Today’s court approval is the realization of the goals that we set for the airline when we entered bankruptcy protection in September 2005. At that time, we pledged to achieve a competitive cost structure, a more efficient business model and a recapitalized balance sheet. We accomplished those goals, returned the airline to profitability, continued to renew our fleet, while at the same time, providing our customers with reliable service.

“In recent weeks, in preparation for our emergence from Chapter 11, we announced a new board of directors and applied to trade our newly issued common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ‘NWA.’”

Northwest Airlines’ new common stock has been authorized for listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “NWA.” Trading on the NYSE is expected to commence May 21, on a “when issued” basis (Ticker Symbol: NWA WI). The company anticipates “regular way” trading to commence on May 31, 2007.

Northwest added that upon the effective date of its Plan of Reorganization, the outstanding common stock, currently traded under the ticker symbol NWACQ.PK, and the preferred stock of the company will be cancelled for no consideration, and, therefore, the company’s existing stockholders will no longer have any interest as stockholders in the company by virtue of their ownership of the company’s outstanding stock.