Insider Poll

Most Georgians Undecided Over Delta Merger

(4/21/08) One result of an extensive InsiderAdvantage survey that includes polling in Georgia, Minnesota, and nationally related to Delta Airlines’ proposed merger with Northwest Airlines was released exclusively by WSB-TV (ABC-Atlanta) this weekend. The InsiderAdvantage poll shows that most Georgians are still undecided as to whether they approve or oppose a merger of the two airlines to be called “Delta.” The result of the sample of 445 Georgians, conducted April 17, weighted for age, race, and gender shows:

Favor: 40%
Oppose: 16%
Undecided: 44%

The survey had a margin of error of +/- 5%

The Georgia portion of the survey, indicates strong awareness of the potential marriage of the two airlines. Other portions of the Georgia survey indicated that, among those who flew the airline in the past year, more respondents were in favor of the merger, but more were also opposed.

“This indicates that Delta has an open road to build support for the merger,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery. “But it also indicates that there is very little political cover for anyone going out of their way to further the cause at present.” Towery said that other parts of the survey indicated the order of concerns passengers have over a merger as well as “positives and negatives” that impact their views. However, the favorable/unfavorable portion of the survey was taken prior to any other questions related to the merger “so as not to influence opinion in one direction or another,” Towery noted.

Note to readers: InsiderAdvantage will release its final surveys of the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary Monday and Tuesday morning. The poll will be posted on both our InsiderAdvantageGeorgia and Southern political Report sites and will also be available through RealClearPolitic.com and WSB-TV. Matt Towery will provide live analysis on WSB-TV/Action News at 11:00 pm on Tuesday night and give a wrap-up of the events during the 6:00pm hour on Wednesday as part of our continuing partnership with WSB.

Additional note: The InsiderAdvantage (spelled two words in the Wall Street Journal article of last week) poll of North Carolina will be updated later this week and will be conducted after the results in Pennsylvania.