Pinnacle Airlines to relocate headquarters to Twin Cities airport
Jan 24, 2013 (Menafn - Pioneer Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --Pinnacle Airlines said Thursday, Jan. 24, that it will relocate its headquarters from Memphis, Tenn., to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport this spring.
The move, tentatively scheduled to be completed in May, will bring jobs to the Twin Cities, but the exact number is as yet unknown, Pinnacle spokesman Joe Williams said.
Pinnacle has about 500 employees currently working at its 170,000 square-foot office at One Commerce Square in downtown Memphis.
The company will offer those employees a chance to relocate, but it hasn't decided on the size of the staff of the new headquarters, Williams said.
The uncertainty is tied to Pinnacle's bankruptcy, the recovery from which was approved earlier this month. The regional airline will emerge from bankruptcy next month as a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines. Pinnacle is a regional carrier for Delta in Minnesota and served that function for the former Northwest Airlines before it was acquired by Delta in 2008.
Pinnacle plans to occupy vacant space leased by Delta Air Lines on land at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Pinnacle employs about 1,100 employees in Minnesota, Williams said. Almost all of them are pilots, flight attendants or aircraft maintenance workers, he said.
Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and the state of Minnesota, led by Gov. Mark Dayton and the city of Memphis and state of Tennessee, led by Gov. Bill Haslam, engaged in what essentially was a tug of war for the airline's
headquarters, and Minnesota won.
"The packages offered by both states were comparable," Williams said. "It was an economic decision."
Leslie Brooks Suzukamo can be reached at 651-228-5475. Follow him at twitter.com/suzukamo.
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