After 19 months of negotiating, it’s official.

A U.S. bankruptcy court on Wednesday gave Delta Air Lines Inc. the go-ahead to exit bankruptcy at the end of this month.

“We’re free at last,” said Delta Chief Executive Gerald Grinstein. “I feel elated.”

Delta, the third largest U.S. airline, emerges as a leaner carrier after cutting capacity and about $1 billion in labor costs.

While the U.S. airline industry turned a profit last year for the first time since before the September 11, 2001 attacks, Delta will emerge from reorganization amid signs of softening demand.

It’s amazing how well your company can perform when you elminate your debt through bankruptcy.

But Delta said earlier this week it believes its expansion into lucrative international markets and lower costs will help it weather a downturn. It has forecast a pretax profit, before special items, of $816 million this year, after a loss of $452 million in 2006.

But if you really hang in there, you can even grow during the process…

Delta expects to have a market value of about $10 billion, which would make it the second-largest U.S. airline by market value after Southwest.

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