Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

How would Delta and/or Northwest survive a pilots strike? In the case of Northwest they had a 90% turnout and 92% voted in favor of a strike. With this kind of support you wouldn't have many scab pilots to fly the jets. NW would obviously be grounded for a day or two as they scrambled to organize teams. Would they then be forced to close the MSP and MEM hubs and fly only very limited service out of DTW to the top U.S. destinations only?

Same goes for Delta. Would that mark the immediate end to the CVG and SLC hubs with a focus on point to point service out of ATL?

You would think that as long as they were in bankruptcy they would get the protection they would need to dump a load of jets and leases and reorganize as a much smaller operation. They could then use the next two years to try and win pilots back over and start adding routes again. Maybe this is when the infamous NW program Newco will swing into action.

As bad as a strike would be for one airline what would this do to the U.S. aviation industry if both Delta and Northwest pilots went on strike? The potential loss of 2 of the top 5 carriers in the U.S. at the same time would have not a ripple effect but rather a tsunami effect in the industry. Ticket prices would skyrocket. Wages would crash. Travel options would be greatly limited.

Lets hope that things never get to that point.