Northwest, Pilots' Union Keep Negotiating Amid High Stakes

MINNEAPOLIS - The threat of mutually assured destruction kept Northwest Airlines and its pilots at the bargaining table on Thursday.

Though Northwest may be able to impose a cost-cutting contract of its choosing, the pilots' threat of a strike that could wreck the nation's fourth-largest airline made that unlikely.

Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch has declined to address the issue directly but said the company intended to keep talking.

"We continue to negotiate, and we are making progress on reaching a consensual agreement with our pilots," he said.

Air travel analyst Terry Trippler called the continuing negotiations good news for Lincoln travelers.

"As long as they are talking, they are not striking," he said.

Although some observers think a strike will cause the airline to go into liquidation, wiping out the Northwest Airlink service that connects Lincoln to Detroit and Minneapolis/St. Paul, Trippler said a deal would keep that worry away.

"As long as the airline does not liquidate," he said, "Lincoln keeps the Northwest air service."

The company wants $358 million in concessions from pilots, the union said last month. But the union and the company said last week they had reached a framework for an agreement on who would fly small jets for Northwest, which had been at the heart of the pilots' strike threat. Pilots also are pressing for protection if Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest is sold or split up, and for a share in the company once it emerges from bankruptcy.

Industry watchers and the pilots union both said it was unlikely Northwest would impose its terms. But Daniel Petree, dean of the business college at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said it wasn't out of the question.

"I don't think it's something they would do lightly," he said, but added, "I doubt they've ruled it out."

The airline has said a strike could put it out of business for good. Pilots would lose more than most workers if that happened, because their large pensions are cut the most if the government has to bail out Northwest's pension. And with the industry in layoff mode, getting a job at another carrier would be difficult.

"I've had pilots who've e-mailed me saying they're so fed up they're willing to fall on their swords," said Vaughn Cordle, chief analyst at AirlineForecasts, who also flies part-time for an airline, not Northwest. "Now think about that for a second - is that a silly thing to say, to take it to the point that they're willing to shut down the airline out of principle?

"They have a right to be upset, because what management is proposing is quite dramatic."

But changes to the industry have been dramatic, too, he said. Discount carriers have driven prices down and encroached on desirable routes, and fuel prices are up.

Based on 2005 numbers, Cordle estimated that Northwest pilots are 28 percent more expensive than the industry average. Since then, Northwest pilots have taken a temporary pay cut that would close much of that gap, but not all of it.

"They don't want to go that deep," he said of the union. "Hence, the strike threat."

Gary Anderson, an NWA flier in Minneapolis, was on his way to Steamboat Springs, Colo., on Thursday to ski with friends. His only concession to the strike threat: renting ski equipment, instead of bringing his own, so he could be flexible about changing flight plans.

Anderson, a chief financial officer for a financial company, said he sympathized with the pilots.

"Those guys deserve to get paid a lot," he said.

Journal Star reporter Rodd Cayton contributed to this report.

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