Pilots Will Take 14 Percent Pay Cut for Delta Solvency

ATLANTA -- Delta Air Lines Inc. pilots voted Wednesday to approve a 14 percent pay cut in a deal their union worked out with management to help the bankrupt carrier cope with an expected cash crunch.

About 58 percent of the members who voted approved the deal, which is the second double-digit pay cut the airline pilots have accepted in 13 months.

Delta and the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents the Atlanta-based company's 6,000 pilots, now will try to hammer out a comprehensive agreement by March. If not, the sides have agreed to let the decision be made by a three-person arbitration panel.

Ultimately, 3,001 pilots voted to slash the average salary of rank-and-file pilots from $170,000 to about $146,000. The pilots also would give up other pilot pay and cost items equal to an additional 1 percent hourly wage reduction.

Before the tentative agreement, the union had threatened to call a strike if the pilot contract were thrown out.

The vote turned out an unusually high 86 percent of the group's members, said Capt. John Culp, the union's spokesman.

The narrow margin, he said, "reflected the pilot group's anger over the concession request." The pilots also were concerned that management had failed to outline a plan that showed how further sacrifices would ensure the airline's future, he said.

Still, he said, a majority of pilots approved the union-brokered deal because it bought them extra time to forge another agreement.

"We don't like the position we're in, but we feel time is of the essence," Culp said. "This agreement gave us time for management's reorganization plan to become clearer."

The agreement, which the airline said would save $143 million, adds to the $1 billion in annual concessions Delta pilots approved in a five-year deal reached in 2004. That deal, which was meant to keep the cash-strapped airline out of bankruptcy, included a 32.5 percent pay cut.

"Given the critical nature of our financial situation, this provides much needed financial relief while we seek to reach a comprehensive agreement with ALPA," Delta CEO Gerald Grinstein said in a prepared statement.

Delta, which has lost more than $11 billion and cut more than 20,000 jobs over the past five years, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on Sept. 14.

Last week, it asked the court for a six-month extension to file its reorganization plan, which is due Jan. 12.

On the Net:

Delta: http://www.delta.com

Air Line Pilots Association: http://www.alpa.org/

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