Northwest Airlines Corp., seeking $1.4 billion in annual labor savings, has reached an agreement with its flight attendants union that will save the bankrupt company $195 million a year and avert a strike.
The accord is subject to approval by the union’s officers and a vote by members of Northwest’s Professional Flight Attendants Association. No vote date has been set. Andy Damis, a spokesman for the 9,700-member union, declined to give details of the agreement.
“It’s in the airline’s interest and it’s in the flight attendants’ interest to make concessions that everybody agrees to, rather than one side forcing it on the other,” said John Budd, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
Northwest, based in Eagan, Minn., sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September. It still must reach a labor agreement with its 5,700-member pilots union and said in a statement Wednesday it’s negotiating with the union. The pilots have threatened to strike if a bankruptcy court approves Northwest’s request to impose $358 million in wage and benefit cuts.
It was possible U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper would rule Wednesday on Northwest’s request, after he twice extended deadlines in February by ordering the parties to continue negotiating.
Lawyers for the pilots union and Northwest met with the judge after a 5 p.m. deadline for reaching an agreement, said pilots union spokesman Will Holman.
Pilots and Northwest were required to give their most recent bargaining position to the judge earlier Wednesday.
The two sides have reached general agreement on the airline’s operation of smaller jets, Holman said. That issue was earlier one of the biggest sticking points in the talks.
