Before we left on our holiday hiatus, we mentioned in PBB that we thought the next “major” news we would hear concerning a potential merger link-up would involve Northwest.

Well, sometimes things take time to come to fruition.

Today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the two airlines are discussing a potential merger, perhaps “after bankruptcy.”

Not sure why they would want to wait — but that is the word this afternoon.

As for the logistics of such a deal, analyst David Strine with Bear Stearns wrote in November,

“All told, the combination would create a massive airline with global reach, better able to harness the power of the SkyTeam alliance as both DAL-Air France and Northwest-KLM separately have transatlantic anti-trust immunity., While the international networks are reasonably complementary, there is no domestic overlap between the carriers’ top 20 city pairs. Further, the fleets have one plane type in common and nine that differ. Finally, the pilots are both represented by ALPA, and none of Delta’s other major [employee groups] is unionized, a potential boon for Northwest. ”