Washington  - Northwest Airlines is flying deeper into the red in the second quarter it announced on Wednesday as a result of high fuel prices and a writedown of its assets. The loss was 377 million dollars after a profit of 2.1 billion dollars for the year earlier period.

Second quarter sales for Northwest rose around 12 per cent to 3.6 billion dollars. The US airline, which is soon to be acquired by Delta Air Lines Inc said its deficit was narrower than analysts estimated. With the costs, the net loss was 1.43 dollars a share, compared with the year-earlier profit because of a one-time gain tied to exiting bankruptcy.

US airlines are parking more than 465 planes and cutting 26,000 jobs to cope with a 77 percent fuel-price surge over the past year, Bloomberg financial news reported. Delta, which agreed in April to buy Northwest, last week doubled its target for new revenue and savings from the merger to 2 billion dollars.

"Given the current fuel environment, the merger makes even more sense," Chief Executive Officer Doug Steenland said Wednesday in a statement. New revenue and savings "will better allow the combined carrier to manage through these challenges."

Northwest, the sixth-largest US carrier, recorded a writedown of goodwill of 547 million dollars in the quarter to reduce the value of its assets, and had a gain of 250 million dollars on its fuel hedges.

Like its competitors Northwest is trimming its fleet at a time when nearly all US air carriers are flying at present in the red numbers. (dpa)