Northwest Airlines appears to be on the road to recovery, in terms of meeting its schedules.
The airline attracted enormous publicity for canceling hundreds of flights a day at the end of June.
Airline spokesman Roman Blahoski said the airline completed 98% of its scheduled flights last weekend.
The carrier operates passenger hubs in Minneapolis; Memphis; and Detroit.
After the June cancellations, Northwest said it would continue recalling all of its furloughed pilots and hire additional pilots if they were needed.
Northwest management also decided to cut the airline’s domestic flight capacity by 3% in August and to drop a Detroit-to-Frankfurt flight beginning July 18, said the AP.
Northwest also plans to alter the way it schedules pilots for flights to the East Coast so it can reduce the harm to the entire flight schedule when there is bad weather or air traffic control delays on the East Coast.
“We are glad they are finally acknowledging that there is a staffing issue and they are taking steps to deal with that,” Monty Montgomery, a spokesman for the Northwest pilots union, said Monday.
Northwest pilots have been flying more hours since their new concessionary contract took effect last year. Maximum pilot flight hours increased from 80 hours per month to 90. Some pilots have said they spend about 20 days away from home each month to log their monthly flight hours.
Northwest disclosed Friday that pilot “absenteeism” was up 80% last month over June 2006. That includes family medical leaves but is primarily sick calls, Northwest said.
Report by David Wilkening
