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Delta Air Lines will have to keep jobs in Minnesota and even create new ones, to avoid early repayment of a $245 million dollar MAC bond.

 

The Minneapolis-Saint Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, or MAC, is the owner and operator of Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and six other reliever airports in the Twin Cities region.

 

Delta, the new owner of Northwest Airlines, will support strengthening the job-creation clause that was part of a 1992 agreement in which the MAC sold bonds to raise capital for Northwest.

 

The agreement requires Northwest employ more than 17,000 people in Minnesota, but allows the carrier to cut jobs in bad economic circumstances. Northwest, which emerged from bankruptcy protection last year, currently employs 11,500 people in the state.

 

As part of the original bond deal, Delta and Northwest agreed to maintain a hub and headquarters in the Twin Cities. But the combined carrier will be based in Atlanta.

 

The MAC or the state Department of Finance could enforce the agreement, and insist that Delta repay the money by 2012, instead of allowing the carrier to pay it off as originally planned by 2022.

 

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