NWA Poolies and news

[ex-dc9drvr]

First QTR Financial Results

A little info on NWA's 1st QTR financial results:

"Northwest Airlines Corp.

The Eagan, Minn.-based carrier reported a first-quarter loss of $171 million, enough to beat the lowered expectations of Wall Street analysts.

Northwest's loss of $2.01 per share for the first three months of 2002, was slightly better than the loss of $2.05 per share a year earlier, when the fourth-largest carrier also reported a net loss of $171 million. Last year's quarter included $48 million in nonrecurring charges.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call expected a loss of $2.46. Northwest shares were down 16 cents at $19.89 at the end of regular trading Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Richard Anderson, Northwest's chief executive said he was encouraged that Northwest generated a profit in March, due partly to the early Easter holiday, but said current economic conditions are still unfavorable.

``We believe the best way to manage the airline in the near term is to remain fiscally disciplined by continuing to control costs and by adding capacity only when economically justified,'' Anderson said.

That could mean delaying delivery on some narrow-body jets Northwest is scheduled to take delivery on in 2003, said Mickey Foret, executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Foret also said Northwest expects to save about $100 million annually as a result of its decision to stop paying base commissions to travel agents for tickets issued in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Those commissions ended March 10.

Northwest, along with most other major airlines, cut back operations by about 20 percent following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Passenger capacity is now down only about 13 percent from a year earlier, but Northwest is flying with only 76 percent of the reduced number of seats filled.

The airline said revenue from higher-paying business travelers hasn't rebounded because of the slowed economy and the effects of Sept. 11 on air travel in general.

Northwest's first-quarter operating revenues totaled $2.18 billion, down 16.5 percent from $2.61 billion a year earlier."

Not what I was truly hoping for.

ex-dc9drvr, i.e., furloughed DC9 Driver

 

[barbarian4]

I read somewhere a while ago that NWA was going to restore a bunch of later departing flights out of Memphis this summer. Is that true and any ideas what effect that might have? I've also heard reserves are getting flown quite a bit.

 

[Seeniner]

The fourth bank, evening flights, is going to be restored this summer at Memphis.

Clarification: NWA is retiring the DC-10-40's, not the DC-10-30's. The -40's are a MX nightmare so much so that NWA flies them only in the US.

 

[Daysoff]

addition to the clarification:

The parking of the DC10-40's was previously scheduled to happen, it has just been accelerated and is only 5 more a/c than originally planned.

Also, the agreement on the CRJ's was that the 44 seaters could never be converted to 50 seaters. The scope provisions always allowed for unlimited numbers of 44 seaters to be flown by express carriers.

Take care,

Hopefully we all get back to work real soon

 

[OakRBust]

I just looked on the NWA website for numbers of aircraft. As of 12-2001 they had 17 10-40's and 23 10-30's. The metro times quoted that there would be 21 10's leaving the property by June. That would be all the 40's and 4 30's.

After all that retraining I bet things will look a whole lot better.

 

[Schwanker]

By the end of the year, there will only be 19 DC-10-30s. The retirement of the -40s is not a huge setback from previous expectations. As said before, they have a terrible mx record and are expensive to operate. Because of this, they have a very low utilization rate compared to the rest of the fleet. This results in a lot of aircraft sitting around (spares) and also results in significantly lower crew ratios. The utilization rates on the -30s are higher and will increase as other DC-10s retire. Most of the -40 flying will be replaced by the 757-300 which will have a very high utilization rate. The net result of the early retirement of the -40s is an early displacement of 15 to 20 crews (45 to 60 pilots). The flying won't be lost, just done by 2 man crews. After ranting and raving here, I guess my main point is that the early retirement should not cause a real significant delay in recalls. Maybe a month only due to reduced training capacity at NATCO.

On another note, no one really knows at what rate the furloughees will return. It may be at normal new hire rates (40 per month) but could be much faster. I've been told that Jeff Carlson (VP Operations) has said it should only be 14-17 days from the time a pilot is recalled to have him flying the line. Obviously, this would require the pilot to return to the same equipment (can you say DC-9). If this is the case, they could easily bring back 100 a month but that's only if NWA wants them back that quickly. Remember, this is a very conservative company.
The flying will only pick up when the demand ($$$) is there.

Schwanker

 

[johno]

I think its also important to note that even with the early retirements of the -40's we will still have a net increase of mainline equiptment. I'm hoping that our industry leading load factor and RASM translates to faster recalls. Good luck to everyone on furlough and those in the pool