Northwest Pilots Stage Walkout After Talks Fail

Northwest Airlines was grounded Friday night after its 6,200 pilots went on strike in a contract dispute with the nation’s fourth-largest air carrier. The initial disruption was minimal, but the walkout threatened to disrupt U.S. travel within days of the hectic Labor Day weekend.

The walkout began at 9:01 p.m. PDT, the pilots’ strike deadline, after negotiators for the airline and the pilots’ union failed to agree on a new pact. Northwest, which runs 1,700 flights daily to 160 cities in 23 countries, promptly shut down operations.

President Clinton declined to order the pilots back to work, as he did 18 months ago when American Airlines and its pilots were locked in a contract fight.

“At this time, the president has decided not to exercise his authority to intervene, and he urges the parties to stay at the table, work hard and resolve their differences,” White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said in a statement.

American, the No. 2 domestic airline behind industry leader United Airlines, carries about 18% of the passengers handled by U.S. carriers. Northwest has about 12%.

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The strike’s initial impact, though modest nationwide, caused immediate hassles for about 600 passengers at Los Angeles International Airport. They had seats on six Northwest flights that were promptly canceled, said Joe Conlon, Northwest’s director of customer service at LAX.

At the customer counter for the 10:50 p.m. red-eye flight to Detroit, a line of nearly 100 grim-faced but subdued passengers waited for a harried Northwest ticket agent to look for alternate routes to the Motor City.

“This is ridiculous; this is absolutely inconvenient,” said 20-year-old Lauren Pool of Northville, Mich.

Some got lucky, though. Rubin Weiner, 33, and Sheri Hoffman, 29, said they quickly got their reservations to Toronto switched to a Continental Airlines flight that also was leaving Friday night.

Over the next two days, about 5,400 Northwest customers due to depart LAX will have to be rerouted, and Northwest’s computers already are moving canceled reservations to other carriers if possible, Conlon said. Those unable to get alternate flights Friday night were to be put up in local hotels, he said.

About 40 Northwest planes were scheduled to be flying when the strike began, and airline spokesman Jon Austin said those flights would continue to their destinations.

Thousands of other Northwest customers already had made other plans for this weekend amid widespread publicity about Northwest’s growing labor strife and the airline’s own cancellation of 400 flights scheduled for Friday and today.

But the big test will come if the strike moves into next week, just as the peak Labor Day travel period arrives. Minneapolis-based Northwest carries more than 150,000 people on an average day.

The worst snags would come at Northwest’s hub airports in Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis, Tenn. The airline handles 75% or more of the passengers at each site, thousands of whom are connecting to planes flying to other destinations.

The disruptions at Los Angeles and San Francisco also could get worse because those cities are gateways for the airline’s busy service to Japan and other Pacific Rim countries. Northwest is the leading U.S. carrier across the Pacific.

Only minutes before the strike deadline, it appeared the shutdown might be averted. Negotiators for the union, the Air Line Pilots Assn., rushed the company’s latest contract proposal to ALPA’s executive council for approval. But with less than 10 minutes to go, the union announced that the offer was rejected.

Both sides naturally blamed each other for the walkout.

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“We are disappointed Northwest management has forced us to strike,” said Capt. Steve Zoller, chairman of the union council. “To our valued passengers, we regret the inconvenience this will cause and ask you to bear with us as this situation unfolds.”

He also said ALPA was ready to resume talks at any time.

Northwest’s Austin, in turn, said ALPA negotiators “refused to make any meaningful compromise on their extreme economic positions,” producing a “senseless” walkout.

Most other airlines have agreed to accept Northwest’s passengers during a strike, but space is tight industrywide right now. Amtrak added rairoad cars on certain routes to accommodate Northwest customers. The U.S. Postal Service, which uses Northwest to help move the mail, said it has contingency plans ready “to handle any and all disruptions.”

Almost immediately after the strike was called, Northwest’s computer system automatically began moving canceled reservations to other airlines, officials said.

If other airlines at a particular airport can’t accommodate all canceled reservations, buses will shuttle passengers to other airports.

Some airports prepared for the worst. Authorities at the Memphis airport stockpiled 2,000 inflatable beds, 2,000 blankets and 2,000 pillows in anticipation of stranded travelers. Cases of diapers and formula also were set aside. Northwest itself reserved as many rooms as possible at airport-area hotels to help travelers.

“The majority of the airport hotels are booked. We’re holding those spaces open for stranded passengers,” said Suzanne Boda, director of customer services for Northwest in Memphis.

The contract talks have dragged on for two years and center on wages, job security and work rules. Northwest’s pilots average $120,000 a year, according to ALPA, though Northwest says the sum is closer to $133,000.

The pilots are intent on getting the contract they want because they and other Northwest employees agreed to $886 million of labor concessions in the early 1990s, when Northwest was teetering toward bankruptcy and the airline industry overall was losing billions of dollars.

Now, the industry is enjoying record prosperity. The pilots had sought a 15% wage hike over five years, while Northwest had offered 10% over that period. Northwest said Friday night it hiked its pay offer in its last offer, but it was still rejected.

In late-July, after the National Mediation Board declared the talks at an impasse, ALPA began a 30-day “cooling off” period, which established the deadline that expired Friday night.