Delta bankruptcy-free

NEW YORK — It took almost two years and 6,000 job cuts, but Delta Air Lines on Wednesday at last received the approval it sought to emerge from bankruptcy protection as an independent company.

On Monday, it plans to be reborn, with new shares, a restructured fleet and lower labor costs, but without the protection from creditors that the court provided.

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. will again have to answer to shareholders, who likely will want to see results quickly.

Delta, which operates a hub at Salt Lake City International Airport, estimates it will be worth $9.4 billion to $12 billion.

More than 95 percent of creditors voted to endorse the plan for Delta to leave bankruptcy as a stand-alone carrier. That plan had been put in jeopardy by a $9.8 billion hostile takeover bid launched last fall by US Airways Group Inc., based in Tempe, Ariz. Delta successfully persuaded creditors to back its blueprint to emerge from bankruptcy and reject the buyout offer.

Now that it is leaving court protection, Delta may sell off its regional carrier subsidiary, Kentucky-based Comair, which has received poor marks for lost baggage and flight delays.

Chief Executive Officer Gerald Grinstein said Wednesday not to expect any "immediate action" on Comair since the company has a new board of directors.

Delta's board also will choose a successor to Grinstein, who plans to retire. Grinstein, who is 74, has said the two leading internal candidates are Chief Financial Officer Ed Bastian and Chief Operating Officer James Whitehurst.

Delta will celebrate its emergence Monday in Atlanta. Shares in the reorganized Delta, with the ticker symbol DAL, are scheduled to begin trading again next Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

"I feel elated," Grinstein said after the hearing. "For the 47,000 (employees) ... they're the ones who went through all the angst and made the sacrifices. It's for them I feel extreme relief."

Delta's reorganization plan will give unsecured creditors between 62 percent and 78 percent of the value of their allowed claims as shares of new Delta stock.

The company's existing stock, which will be worthless, continued to trade until the court's approval of the plan. The shares fell 3.5 cents, or 21.2 percent, Wednesday to 13 cents on the Pink Sheets, an over-the-counter electronic trading platform.