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Northwest flies on despite strike
Northwest Airlines’ flights in the early days of the strike appeared to be close to normal but how long that would continue was still questionable with contradictory reports.
The airline itself said it was completing 96% of its flights as planned.
But the Associated Press said nearly 400 flights could be cancelled in the first week of the mechanics strike, which is about double the number during the same time last year.
The publisher of a business travel Web site, Joe Brancatelli, found only about half of the flights were running on time.
An airline spokesman claimed his study was unscientific, random and included markets that could have been impacted by weather.
“The airline performed worse than rivals United and American. But it didn’t suffer the kind of collapse that striking mechanics had been hoping for,” said USA Today, which did an analysis.
The newspaper added, however, that delays were creeping up.
Northwest is using 350 management employees trained and licensed to do maintenance, as well as 1,100 temporary employees to attempt to keep on schedule. Replacement workers were hired under an extensive contingency plan by Northwest that cost them $107 million, according to The New York Times.
Northwest says now that the transition period is over, passengers can expect the usual number of on-time flights.
But the mechanics union said the airline’s performance was much worse than business-as-usual.
“It’s a matter of time before Northwest has to publicly admit that its contingency plan has big holes in it,” said the union on its Web site.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has nearly doubled the number of inspectors watching Northwest from 46 to 80.
No new talks are scheduled between Northwest and the union.
Report by David Wilkening
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