CINCINNATI (AP) - Comair's union employees will split about $68 million when the Delta Air Lines Inc. subsidiary and its parent emerge from bankruptcy.
Comair and Atlanta-based Delta are expected to emerge from Chapter 11 protection in May.
The unions representing Comair's pilots, flight attendants and mechanics had filed claims with the creditors' committee in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to recover some of what union members would lose through contract concessions made to Comair. The airline said it needed the concessions in order to emerge from bankruptcy and spent much of the past year and a half negotiating agreements for those concessions from all three unions.
Flight attendants will share $5.5 million, mechanics will share $750,000 and Comair's pilots will divide about $61.8 million after the airline emerges from bankruptcy.
'While this doesn't make up for what we lost, it is better for the pilots to have something that will help going forward,' Paul Denke, spokesman for the Comair branch of the Air Line Pilots Association, said Monday. 'It will mitigate some of the pain.'
Comair spokeswoman Kate Marx said nonunion employees were told Friday that they also would receive post-bankruptcy rewards.
The amounts to be allocated to nonunion employees will vary by employee group and were not available Monday, Marx said.
'Our people play a critical role in our future success, so we are pleased to be able to acknowledge the sacrifices they made in bankruptcy,' she said.
About 39,000 Delta employees will share $480 million in cash and stock in that company when Delta emerges from Chapter 11 protection, according to a bankruptcy court filing last week. Delta's 6,000 pilots and flight dispatchers, who are covered by collective bargaining agreements, will not receive a share of that total but will participate in profit sharing and reward programs for all Delta employees.
None of the compensation and benefit programs outlined in Delta's filing applied to Comair employees.
Comair, based in Erlanger, Ky., near Cincinnati, filed for bankruptcy along with Delta in September 2005.
Comair has about 6,500 employees and operates 751 flights a day to 102 cities.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright 2005 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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