Last update: March 16, 2005 at 9:52 PM
NWA to pare fleet, cut up to 900 jobs
Liz Fedor, Star Tribune
March 17, 2005 NWA0317
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Northwest Airlines, facing a lethal combination of persistently high fuel prices and stubbornly low fares, will reduce its fleet by 30 airplanes in 2005 and slash up to 900 high-paying mechanics jobs from its Minnesota payroll.
For airline workers, passengers and investors, the retiring of planes and a new round of job cuts are fresh reminders that the steep, four-year decline in the fortunes of large airlines shows no signs of lifting, even as Northwest and other airline executives win wage reductions from some or all of their employees.
"Just when you think you've hit bottom, they pull it out from underneath you again," said Jeff Mathews, contract coordinator with the mechanics union, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA).
Northwest had 451 planes in its fleet at the end of 2004. Most, if not all, of the 30 that will be parked are DC-9s, which have an average age of 33.8 years and which seat between 78 and 125 passengers. On Monday, Northwest said it would freeze the number of domestic seat miles it will fly this year at 2004 levels.
A NWA DC-9It blamed a glut of seats in the U.S. aviation market.
It's unclear how Twin Cities passengers will be affected by Northwest's decision to take some planes out of service, but a company spokesman said the airline expects to reduce the frequency of flights on some routes.
The Eagan-based carrier said Wednesday that it will shut down a DC-9 heavy-maintenance check line in the Twin Cities and not bring back six planes that had been scheduled to fly this year. The immediate impact: 130 mechanic jobs will be cut. Notices will go out in the next couple of weeks, and mechanics could use their seniority to take jobs elsewhere in the Northwest system -- displacing less senior workers in the process -- or simply accept a layoff and leave the Northwest payroll.
Another dozen AMFA members who work in a Twin Cities composite shop also will be given notices, because they support the heavy maintenance work.
Before the 2001 terrorist attacks, AMFA represented about 5,300 Northwest workers in the Twin Cities. That number has fallen to about 3,150, according to Ted Ludwig, president of AMFA Local 33 in Bloomington.
"I was here when we had the Iraq war layoffs when 1,683 guys got their pink slips in one day," Ludwig said. "This is just something that we've grown accustomed to and we will deal with it one day at a time as it comes."
Northwest said Wednesday that it will take another 24 planes out of service, but it declined to give a timetable for those changes.
"The first reduction will take place in June while additional aircraft will be phased out later this year," the Northwest pilots union said in a memo to pilots on Wednesday night.
"Because a large number of DC-9s are owned rather than leased, Northwest indicated it can realize a net savings by removing these aircraft from routes that are identified as unprofitable," the pilots union said.
Taking two dozen planes out of service will mean shedding an extra 700 to 800 mechanic jobs in the Twin Cities, where workers take planes apart, inspect them for cracks and wear, and rebuild them over the course of weeks. By eliminating so-called heavy maintenance work on its DC-9s, Northwest said it will close two of its maintenance lines operated by an outside vendor in Texas.
The worst-case scenario for the mechanics union is 930 job cuts this year.
But three other large Northwest unions -- the pilots, flight attendants and ground workers -- are not expecting job cuts.
Management does not expect to furlough any more Northwest pilots this year, according to the Northwest branch of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). But the company also does not expect to call more pilots back to work, and about 500 are still on furlough.
Bob Krabbe, an official with the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA), said Northwest is not expected to furlough more flight attendants. Instead, he said, any changes in staffing levels will be managed through voluntary leaves
