	u s supreme court allows delta western merger u s supreme court justice sandra day o connor early this morning lifted an appeals court injunction blocking the planned merger of delta dal airlines inc and western airlines wal the court said o connor s action came hours after a three judge panel of the th u s circuit court of appeals in san francisco had blocked the merger until a dispute over union representation had been settled by arbitration a supreme court spokesman said o connor granted a stay of the injuction allowing the merger worth nearly mln dlrs to go through as planned later today the supreme court spokesman provided no other details each of the nine supreme court justices has jurisdiction over a particular regional appellate circuit and has the power to provisionally overturn its rulings without comment the appeals court ruling surprised officials of atlanta based delta which had been preparing for the merger for months and had already painted delta logos on airplanes belonging to western which has headquartera in los angeles our plans were to finalize the merger at midnight tonight delta spokesman bill berry told the atlanta constitution late last night there was really very little that remained to be done the ruling in san francisco came in a lawsuit that had been filed in a los angeles federal court in which the air transport employees union sought to force western s management to fulfill a promise that it would honor union contracts if a merger took place the airlines argued that western s promise could not be enforced in a takeover by a larger company after learning of the appeals court ruling delta officials last night spread the word by telephone that western employees should report for work today in their old uniforms not in new delta outfits delta announced last september that it was purchasing western the merger took place in december and western has been operated as a delta subsidiary since then the western name was to have disappeared at midnight last night at issue is whether the western unions would continue to represent western employees after the integration of the two airlines while all but eight pct of western s employees are unionized only delta s pilots are union members delta had maintained that the three unions having contracts with western the association of flight attendants and the teamsters as well as the air transport employees would be extinguished after today reuter 
