NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Delta Air Lines Inc., offering a glimpse of its plans after bankruptcy, will post its first annual profit this year since 2000 and be “an acquirer” in the future, chief executive officer Gerald Grinstein said.Delta’s costs will fall and unit revenue will rise faster than the industry average, Grinstein and other executives told analysts and investors in Atlanta. They reaffirmed an earlier forecast of a 2007 pretax profit of $816 million.

“This is not your granddaddy’s Delta sitting in some backwater,” Grinstein said. “It’s now in a position to be one of the change agents of this industry.”

Delta used its first investor day in seven years to sketch its outlook beyond the bankruptcy exit now set for April 30. The Atlanta-based carrier wants to name directors this week, have new shares listed by early May and serve London’s Heathrow airport under new “Open Skies” rules.

Unsecured creditors for Delta, the third-largest US airline by traffic, are voting through April 9 on a reorganisation plan that values the carrier at $10 billion. A US Bankruptcy Court hearing to confirm the plan is scheduled for April 25.

A pretax profit this year would snap six years of losses at Delta, including a pretax loss of $452 million in 2006. Delta is the largest US carrier in bankruptcy.

First-quarter unit revenue, or what Delta earns to fly one seat one mile, will rise 4 percentage points compared with a year earlier, or four times the industrywide average, Chief Financial Officer Ed Bastian said.

Delta’s unit costs, or what it pays to fly one seat a mile, will fall 7 percent as the carrier adds international flights and benefits from reduced labour costs.

Grinstein said the next round of industry consolidation is “three to four years away” because airlines are stronger financially.

Delta may have to react defensively if other mergers take place before then and will be “an acquirer,” said Grinstein, who fended off a hostile takeover bid by smaller rival US Airways Group Inc. two months ago.

Large US airlines that use hubs may buy smaller low-fare carriers that fly passengers from point to point, Grinstein said. The 74-year-old CEO won’t be leading Delta in that next round of consolidation; he plans to retire when his successor is named.

“I’m more bullish about consolidation than Jerry,” Bastian said. The directors will address merger prospects as well as whether to sell regional carrier Comair, Bastian said.

Grinstein, discussing the overseas flying he has championed during Delta’s bankruptcy, said the airline wants to serve London Heathrow from two hubs — its hometown base in Atlanta and from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

“They’re both huge opportunities for us,” he said. Asia and London’s Heathrow are the biggest “holes” in Delta’s international network, he said.