ATLANTA, Dec. 2, 2008 – Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) today issued the following memo to its more than 75,000 employees worldwide from CEO Richard Anderson and President Edward H. Bastian.

As always, we want to make certain that Delta people are the first to know about changes to our business. That is why we are sharing with you now that later this morning at an investment conference in New York, we will announce plans to decrease systemwide capacity, for both Delta and Northwest, during 2009. This action comes as a result of the global economic recession and weaker demand for air travel.

Systemwide 2009 capacity will be down 6-8% year over year. Domestic capacity will be down 8-10% and international capacity will be down approximately 3-5%. These numbers include the full impact of previously announced 2008 capacity reductions.
 
Delta has established itself as an industry leader. Once again, Delta must take the necessary steps to adjust our business accordingly and make certain seat capacity meets customer demand. These economic hurdles are difficult, and we remain committed to building our company on a durable financial foundation with industry-leading liquidity. Remember that speed wins so we will be decisive and not delay. As Rules of the Road states, “Speed in execution is the difference between success and failure.”
 
Even with the economic recession, we are achieving significant benefits from our merger and will continue to do so. The merger has allowed us to develop growth opportunities as we connect the networks to create new revenue streams neither airline could have achieved independently. We will continue to follow the Flight Plan to invest in and further diversify our international network in the Pacific, Africa, India and the Middle East to help mitigate the risk from specific regional economies. We will remain focused on, and continue to adapt to, the rapidly changing global economy to better align supply with demand.

We are taking these actions to secure your careers and return us to sustained profitability. In the meantime, we are analyzing the impact on staffing as it pertains to these capacity reductions and, as in the past, we will offer voluntary programs to adjust staffing needs. We will continue to make decisions that are in the long-term interest of our colleagues, customers, shareholders and the communities we serve.
 
Thank you for your focus in executing on the Flight Plan, in spite of fuel at record levels earlier this year and now the unfolding economic recession. We have a solid cash balance, best-in-class cost per available seat mile (CASM) and your operational performance is head and shoulders above the rest of the industry. We thank you for the incredible work you do for our customers every day. Together, we will get through this new challenge and build a stronger Delta.

Ed    Richard

About Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines is the world's largest airline. From its hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-JFK, Salt Lake City and Tokyo-Narita, Delta, its Northwest Airlines subsidiary and Delta Connection carriers offer service to more than 375 destinations worldwide in 66 countries and serve more than 170 million passengers each year. Delta's marketing alliances allow customers to earn and redeem either SkyMiles or WorldPerks on more than 16,000 daily flights offered by SkyTeam and other partners. Delta and its 75,000 worldwide employees are reshaping the aviation industry as the only U.S. airline to offer a full global network. Customers can check in for flights, print boarding passes, check bags and flight status at delta.com.

Forward-looking Statements
Statements in this news release that are not historical facts, including statements regarding our estimates, expectations, beliefs, intentions, projections or strategies for the future, may be “forward-looking statements” as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  All forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the estimates, expectations, beliefs, intentions, projections and strategies reflected in or suggested by the forward-looking statements.  These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the cost of aircraft fuel; the impact that our indebtedness will have on our financial and operating activities and our ability to incur additional debt; the restrictions that financial covenants in our financing agreements will have on our financial and business operations; labor issues; interruptions or disruptions in service at one of our hub airports; our increasing dependence on technology in our operations; our ability to retain management and key employees; the ability of our credit card processors to take significant holdbacks in certain circumstances; the effects of terrorist attacks; competitive conditions in the airline industry; and our ability to achieve expected synergies from our merger with Northwest. 

Additional information concerning risks and uncertainties that could cause differences between actual results and forward-looking statements is contained in Delta’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007 and Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended September 30, 2008. Caution should be taken not to place undue reliance on Delta’s forward-looking statements, which represent Delta’s views only as of December 2, 2008, and which Delta has no current intention to update.