Northwest Airlines 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.
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