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1990's
In 1990, Delta became the first U.S. airline to operate the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 aircraft, leasing two from Mitsui.
Delta expanded dramatically by purchasing most of Pan Am's European routes after Pan Am declared bankruptcy in 1991. Delta initially explored a joint divvying-up of Pan Am's assets with United Airlines where Delta would take over the New York-based European operations and United would take over the Miami-based Latin American operations, but the two carriers reached an impasse over which would assume the Pan Am Miami-London route. On September 1, Delta acquired Pan Am's East Coast and European routes (except for its intra-European routes from Frankfurt, acquired by Lufthansa) and assumed a controlling interest in the remainder of Pan Am, which continued to operate routes from Miami to London, Paris and Latin America. The total price for these assets was $1.3 billion.
Although Delta initially promised further equity injections to keep Pan Am afloat, it refused to do so only a month later, which forced Pan Am to cease operations on December 4.[10] United purchased the remaining assets of Pan Am a few days later, including transatlantic routes from Miami, for a total of $135 million.
The Pan Am creditors' committee sued Delta for more than $2.5 billion on December 9.
The Pan Am transaction gave Delta the largest transatlantic route network among U.S. airlines. Because of these acquisitions, Delta became and remains the largest U.S. transatlantic carrier, in terms of passengers carried and number of flights operated. The ex-Pan Am routes acquired by Delta included Detroit to London, despite Northwest Airlines' objections due to Delta's small presence in Detroit and Northwest's comparatively larger operations. Northwest later attempted to buy US Air's (now US Airways) Baltimore-London route for $5 million and transfer the route to Detroit but ended up buying the route from Delta in 1995 for a rumored $32 million.
Throughout the 1990s, Delta maintained a secondary hub at Portland for its Asia operations. In addition to regularly scheduled flights to Delta's primary hubs during this time (Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, and Salt Lake City), several of Delta's flights to Asia were routed from Portland and Los Angeles, using L-1011 and MD-11 aircraft. Destinations included Bangkok, Fukuoka (resumed December 28, 2011 from Honolulu as a seasonal route), Hong Kong, Manila, Nagoya, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo (resumed June 3, 2009 replacing Northwest Airlines route). Delta was one of the airlines targeted in the failed Operation Bojinka plot: the conspirators planned to bomb a Delta MD-11 flying from Seoul to Bangkok via Taipei on January 21, 1995. Today, all Asia operations from Portland and Los Angeles have ceased (except for Portland-Tokyo and Los Angeles-Tokyo).
In 1998, Delta and United Airlines introduced a marketing partnership that included a reciprocal redemption agreement between SkyMiles and Mileage Plus programs and shared lounges. This scheme allowed members of either frequent flier program to earn miles on both carriers and utilize both carriers' lounges. Delta and United attempted to introduce an even closer codeshare agreement, but this was deal was effectively killed by ALPA.
