Northwest to Lay Off 1,400 Flight Attendants
Posted on: Sunday, 25 September 2005, 12:00 CDT
MINNEAPOLIS -- Northwest Airlines Corp. said Wednesday it will lay off 1,400 flight attendants by January as it shrinks in bankruptcy, just months after it re-hired some of them.
The flight attendants union also said Northwest is pressing to use more locally hired, nonunion flight attendants on overseas flights as another way to save money -- a proposal the union said would result in the outsourcing of those jobs to cheaper labor markets overseas and which it will fight.
The layoffs will begin with 900 furloughs on Oct. 31, including 480 in Detroit, Northwest's largest hub, and 355 in Minneapolis. The remainder would come by January, according to a memo by a Northwest vice president for in-flight services that was provided by the Professional Flight Attendants Association.
Northwest employed about 8,500 flight attendants on May 31.
Northwest said when it filed for Chapter 11 protection last week that it would furlough more workers, and last week the pilot's union said 400 pilots would be laid off in coming months. The carrier has indicated it would reduce its schedule by at least 5 percent to 6 percent.
"These actions were necessary in order for NWA to build a competitive cost structure and a more effective business model," the memo said.
Over the summer, Northwest recalled flight attendants who had been laid off after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Bob Krabbe, a spokesman for the flight attendants union. Northwest even ran ads recruiting new flight attendants, although it said that was in case current flight attendants staged a sympathy strike with mechanics, who walked out on Aug. 20.
Northwest is in talks with flight attendants, ground workers and pilots as it seeks to cut costs in bankruptcy. Flight attendants have said Northwest wants $195 million in savings from them as part of $1.4 billion in concessions from all workers.
Shares of Northwest fell 10 cents, or 12 percent, to close at 71 cents in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Source: Tulsa World
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