Northwest Airlines: another broken promise

As the state struggled with the question of subsidizing a corporation to prevent them from leaving for greener pastures, another sordid chapter in subsidy politics came to a close Friday. Mesaba Airlines announced that it was abandoning its Eagan headquarters and moving 193 jobs to Memphis. This comes on the heels of job cuts caused by the closing of MSP-based training facilities announced in June.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Cliff1066

This represents another chunk of the jobs that were supposed to be created and preserved by massive subsidies to Northwest Airlines. The largest of these subsidies was a massive $761 million loan and grant for the construction of a aircraft maintenance base in Duluth and a reservations center in Chisholm. The reservations center is still operating in Chisholm, but the Duluth base never really got off the ground. The City of Duluth owns it and has struggled to find a tenant. 

Delta plans to repay the remaining $175 million in bonds that were the state's only remaining negotiating leverage.

If only, if only someone had given Northwest Airlines a bigger subsidy, then I'm sure we could have saved all these jobs. When will we learn that you can't trust the job creation promises of corporate welfare recipients?

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