Delta Air Lines seeks $5.9 million government loan to renovate Minn. call center

The Associated Press
November 5, 2013 at 11:30PM
Reservationists, including Joyce Burnette in the foreground, log travel reservations into computers at Northwest Airlines reservations center in Chisholm. The Northwest facility represents the growth of the service industry on the Iron Range.
Delta Air Lines is seeking a federal loan to update a call center in Chisholm that was originally built by Northwest Airlines with federal aid. 2001 file photo of reservation agents at the Chisholm facility. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

MINNEAPOLIS — Delta Air Lines wants a $5.9 million forgivable government loan to refurbish a call center in northern Minnesota that was mostly built with government money in the first place.

Delta's loan application says the call center in Chisholm employs 418 people. It says the renovation would add 107 more.

The loans are handled by a state agency called the Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board. Commissioner Tony Sertich says the new loan is expected to be forgivable, too, as long as Delta meets job targets.

Northwest Airlines built the call center with a $9.7 million loan from the board in 1994. Of that, $1 million was repaid and the rest was forgiven. Delta Air Lines Inc. bought Northwest in 2008.

The new loan is scheduled to be considered Thursday.

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