Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

It's official. According to the Wall Street Journal online edition, as of 12:30 a.m. EDT, NW's mechanics union went on strike.

Northwest Airlines Is Hit
By Strike of Mechanics Union

Associated Press
August 20, 2005 12:30 a.m.

Mechanics struck Northwest Airlines early Saturday after refusing big pay cuts and layoffs that would have cut their numbers almost in half. The nation's fourth largest airline pledged to keep flying with replacements.

After months of talks broke off here just before midnight Friday, union spokesman Jim Young said the mechanics would rather see the airline go into bankruptcy than agree to Northwest's terms. The Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association 4,427 of Northwest's 40,000 workers. The strike began at 12:01 a.m. EDT.

Julie Hagen Showers, Northwest's vice president for labor relations, told reporters here that the airline will operate a full schedule on Saturday.

.....continued at wsj.com for subscribers...

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

There was an article in the Star yesterday about the NW strike not affecting IND too much. Sorry I don't have it to post. Basically, the article stated that since about half the new NW service at IND is operated by Pinnacle airlines, a regional carrier, that those flights wouldn't be affected at all by the strike. The mainline flights might not be affected too much because NW has trained replacements and contingencies in place to handle the strike.

My opinion - they weathered a strike pretty well back in 2000, I think it was. The first couple days of the strike had quite a few cancellations, but mostly because of sympathy actions and sickouts, etc. Then things calmed down and NW operated near normally for the duration of the strike. I think the same thing is likely to happen this time. As for direct impact on IND, I think most of the new nonstops will be OK, because they're either operated by Pinnacle or they pretty much just make turns IND-destination and back. Flights to the hubs will probably face delays and cancellations, especially in the first few days. If you're flying NW on a nonrefundable ticket, I'd say stick it out. If you're on a refundable and you're going to a destination with lots of volume on the route, like NYC, LAS, central and south Florida, DC, etc., then you might just cancel your ticket and rebook on another airline to avoid the hassle.