Northwest Staff Airs Plane Safety Worries

Flight attendants at Northwest Airlines Corp. are expressing concern about the safety of the carrier’s planes four days into a strike by the company’s mechanics.

Members of the Professional Flight Attendants Assn. are calling union offices with comments about some work being done by the mechanics’ replacements, spokesman Bob Krabbe said. Members have made hundreds of calls, complaining that some of the airline’s replacements don’t know how to make some repairs and that delays are frustrating customers, Krabbe said.

“Many of our people have called in and said: ‘We’re concerned about flying on these aircraft,’ ” Krabbe said. The union represents about 10,000 Northwest employees.

The flight attendants’ comments came as Northwest worked to keep its planes flying with more than 1,200 replacement mechanics, part of a $107-million contingency plan devised before the strike began Saturday. Mechanics and cleaners went on strike over the Eagan, Minn.-based company’s proposal to cut $176 million in pay, benefits and jobs to reduce costs.

The airline is still in negotiations with its other unions, including the flight attendants, as it tries to lower labor costs by $1.1 billion annually and avert a bankruptcy filing.

Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said the company wasn’t aware of the flight attendants’ reports.

“The contractor technicians that are supporting our operations are experienced and highly qualified professionals with an average of 14 years experience working on equipment comparable to that operated by Northwest Airlines,” Ebenhoch said.

He said many of the workers are former employees of UAL Corp.’s United Airlines, US Airways Group Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. Northwest has said the replacements include 350 licensed management mechanics and 1,200 licensed contract mechanics. It said it trained the replacement mechanics in classrooms and had them trained on Northwest planes.

The company said it has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure the safety of its contingency plan and the agency has provided more inspectors.

Ebenhoch confirmed Tuesday that it eliminated 1,200 cleaner and mechanic positions under the contingency plan, hiring outside companies to do maintenance at all of its 32 U.S. airports except Detroit, Minneapolis and Milwaukee.