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Saturday, Aug. 29, 1998
Passengers, airports brace for strike
Clinton probably won't halt a walkout by Northwest pilots
By KAREN SCHWARTZ
Associated PressWith hundreds of weekend flights already canceled and airports ready with pillows and blankets for stranded travelers, Northwest Airlines and its pilots Friday held talks aimed at averting a strike at midnight.
A walkout against the sixth-largest U.S. airline could plunge air travel into chaos across the nation's midsection.
Negotiations between the airline and the Air Line Pilots Associations continued at a Minneapolis hotel for the 10th straight day as word came from the White House that President Clinton was unlikely to intervene.
Tentative agreements were reached on most contract issues, but not on two of the most contentious points.
``We are still talking about the major issues of job security and compensation, the big rocks that still need to be cracked,'' union spokesman Paul Omodt said.
Northwest pilots earn an average salary of about $120,000 per year. Probationary pilots earn $24,720, while senior captains can make as much as $200,000.
The 6,100-member union had no plans of pushing back its strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. EDT today, Omodt said.
``We've told Northwest we want a proposal before then so we have a chance to look at it. But it is a firm deadline,'' he said.
Because Northwest announced earlier in the week it was canceling 400 flights on Friday and today, its hub airports in Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis were calm. The airline controls 75 percent to 82 percent of the plane seats into those cities.
About 40 Northwest planes are scheduled to be in the air at the time of the strike deadline. Northwest spokesman Jon Austin said those flights would not be canceled ahead of the strike deadline.
In Detroit, the normally jammed parking decks around the airport were mostly empty and there was little of the usual crowding around the gates, ticket counters and baggage carousels.
But that could be the calm before the storm.
Authorities at the Memphis airport had stockpiled 2,000 inflatable beds, 2,000 blankets and 2,000 pillows for waylaid travelers. They also set aside cases of baby diapers and formula. Northwest Airlines, meanwhile, reserved as many rooms as possible in hotels near the airport.
``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.
Amtrak hooked two additional cars to its train between St. Paul, Minn., and Chicago to accommodate an extra 140 people. Tiny Kiwi International Air Lines announced it would start two flights a day between Detroit and Newark, N.J.
Some travelers weren't taking any chances. Steve Clary, flying to Baltimore from Fargo, N.D., rebooked his late-afternoon flight for Friday morning. ``I'm getting out while I can,'' he said during a stopover in Minneapolis.
Northwest, based in Eagan, Minn., is the nation's No. 6 airline in terms of passengers carried, with more than 54 million annually.
The airline has said a strike and the corresponding shutdown of its Airlink regional feeder service would eliminate 2,640 daily departures at 223 airports in the United States and abroad, leaving nearly 672,000 passengers without alternative air service during the first 10 days. Northwest already halted its cargo service as of Thursday.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman said Friday the Clinton administration had no intention of getting involved.
``At this point, the administration is not talking about intervention. We're talking about: Stay at the table, get the job done,'' Herman said in Honolulu where she addressed a convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Meanwhile, a planned march on Northwest headquarters by flight attendants and machinists who wanted to show their support for the pilots was halted Friday when a judge agreed with the airline that the protesters would be trespassing. The 60 to 70 flight attendants and machinists moved their rally to the Mall of America parking lot, but they were asked to leave because they hadn't gotten permission from mall officials. They wound up on a grassy knoll nearby, waving their signs at drivers passing by.Post your comments about local news eventsFront Page || Main Index || News || Business || Texas || South Texas Outdoors || Birdwatching || Sports || Entertainment || Selena || Education || South Texas Attractions || World Wide Web