Northwest Airlines Lastest News

[Deb&Bert]

This was in the Detroit Free Press News Paper

 

 

NWA pilots argue for pact

Labor union says it might call strike

 

January 6, 2006

 

Email this Print this BY TOM BECKER

 

BLOOMBERG

The union representing Northwest Airlines Corp.'s pilots asked a judge Thursday to deny the airline's request to throw out its contract, saying the move would hurt the airline's reorganization and might prompt a strike.

 

The Air Line Pilots Association asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper to order the airline to keep negotiating on a new contract. Northwest says it needs to reduce pilots pay to cut expenses by $630 million a year and stay competitive. The pilots said they proposed a plan in December to cut costs by $544 million.

 

Northwest is asking to scrap contracts with its three biggest unions and impose new terms if agreements can't be reached this month. Flight attendants threatened to strike Wednesday, and Northwest's largest union, the International Association of Machinists, objected to the company's effort to eliminate almost half its members' jobs.

 

"These demands justifiably have created distrust and anger in a pilot workforce which is key to the company's chances for reorganization," Richard Seltzer, a lawyer for the union, said in court papers. "ALPA may lawfully strike should this court reject the agreement."

 

"We do not believe that a work stoppage would be in the best interest of the airline, its employees, our customers or the communities we serve," the company said in a statement.

 

Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said the airline doesn't believe the unions have the right to strike if Gropper blocks them from doing so.

 

The pilots union, representing 5,700 Northwest pilots, said it has the legal right to strike under the federal Railway Labor Act. There have been five pilot strikes at Northwest since 1969, according to court documents. The most recent was in 1978, when the pilots walked off the job for 109 days. In 1998, Northwest shut down for 15 days in response to the threat of a strike, the union said in court papers.

[GoinCruisin]

Ugh! Guess I won't be booking that 2/23 flight anytime soon... this sucks!!!!!!!

[Aloha Me]

We're booked with NW and picking seats for a flight end of March. Also booked in July for another cruise. I knew things were going too smoothly! Guess I better start checking the bus schedules.

[sicsinohio]

Our son is supposed to fly to Orlando on Northwest the first week of April with his high school baseball team. The travel agent that the team is using called and their flight was changed. At this time they are cutting back on flights anf the prices have gone up considerably since they booked their flights in August 2005. We are going down, too, but we decided to drive because we'll need a car while we're there anyway.

 

We're also going on a cruise in March and are booked on American from Dayton to Miami. It's a couple hours' drive to Dayton but much cheaper than flying out of Toledo. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that American stays solvent and their employees don't strike!:confused:

[phabric]

Please keep us informed about NorthWest as I am very interested in booking them for a trip to California for Sept. Being from Canada we don't hear about all your strikes. It is much cheaper flying from Detroit, MI (DTW) to California than flying from Canada.

 

Right now their price for DTW-LAX and SFO-DTW is $339.61 looks good but I don't know if it will go down anymore. What do you think?

[DanJ]

You might be better to wait until early summer. They are always having sales, and you can also get flights on Southwest and Spirit from DTW. Plus you can also look at Flint, which is the same distance driving (cross at Sarnia/Port Huron, and Flint is an hour west, DTW is an hour south).

 

We got DTW-LAX on NW for $234 Canadian round trip for our cruise later next week.

[phabric]

DanJ

Thanks. I have looked at Flint and they are more expensive than DTW. I like the times for NW and it is the only direct flight to LA or SF. Air Canada wants today $800CDN vs $391US worth the drive.

[DanJ]

You should definitely beat $391 US from DTW as the dates get closer. When I booked my flights in October, the fares shot up to over $400 the next day, but dropped back down. The are all over the place, so you have to keep an eye on things, and book when you think the time is right.

 

NW also has flights out of London (YXU), and Kitchener (YKF) that connect in Detroit, so you can compare those fares as well. They will be higher, but if you take into consideration drive time, gas, and parking at Detroit is not cheap, it might be worth it.

 

In the past, I've also compared prices from Buffalo, and found that it was cheaper to book from BUF, and connect in DTW than it was to book that same flight from DTW itself.

[msolberg]

Anyone know anything new about the NW situation? We have a NW flight booked for March 9th to MCO for our cruise on the Glory.

 

As we live in such a rural area we would have to drive about 5 hours for another airline.

 

Diane

[gailc]

I read yesterday that the N.W. pilots agreed to their pensions. They are going to switch to 401K's. Hope now we don't have to worry about a strike.

 

I've been checking N.W. for 2 weeks now for flights on either 11/24/06 or 11/25/06 which is the Thurs. & Fri. after Thansgiving. We want to fly from Muskegon, Mi to Miami for our cruise. The 1st day the schedule came out it was $482 roundtrip for one person. Now it has jumped to $692 per person. If I had know it was going up that much, I would have booked the 1st one. Now I don't know if the price will go down again.

 

I can get cheap flights from Muskegon, Mi to Miami on Midwest Airlines. They are much cheaper, but it flies into Ft. Lauderdale. We would rather fly into Miami. So now we have to decide whether to wait & see if the N.W. flights go down & hope the Midwest don't go up.

 

Gail

[DanJ]

It's tough from a smaller market and a holiday weekend to get cheaper fares. Have you considered driving to maybe Flint or even Detroit? I know from where I am it was a lot cheaper to fly from Detroit than to connect in Detroit. And Flint also has some cheaper flights on Air Tran that connect in Atlanta. Sometimes driving and parking isn't worth it, but sometimes it is.

[gailc]

DanJ - We have a small airport in Muskegon with 2 airlines - Midwest & N.W. -that connect to Milwaukee or Detoit. We could also drive to Grand Rapids, Mi which is 1 hour from us. We prefer to fly out of Muskegon airport since it's 5 minutes from our house especially at that time of year. If N.W. doesn't lower the price of those flights, I can't imagine anyone will book them.

 

Gail

[DanJ]

I prefer to fly from my local airport too, also 5 minutes from my house. We have NW to Detroit, and Air Canada to Toronto. It's just that it rarely ever pays to fly from here. I could spend $400 from here, or $200 from Detroit. Convenience is one thing, but for $200 per person, we'll spend the couple hours in the car and drive to Detroit.

 

If you look at Detroit, there are fares in the $300 range to either Miami or Ft Lauderdale, and those will likely fluctaute more than from Muskegon. Plus there are many other airlines to price out of Detroit, like Spirit, Southwest and Air Tran, not to mention the major airlines. You just have to decide what's it worth to you to fly from home, or to drive.

[fun cruiserz]

Dan - We live in London as well and I agree with you about driving to Detroit and flying from there. I checked prices flying from London to Miami and flying Detroit to Miami and to us it worked out cheaper to drive to Detroit and fly from there. Plus I don't like the little planes that you have to go on to fly from London to Toronto to catch a connecting flight to Miami.

[sicsinohio]

It pays to look at all the airports within reasonable driving distance. We live near Toledo, Ohio, and flights to Miami for our March cruise on the Explorer are expensive from there. We looked at Detroit, Cleveland, Clolumbus, Ft. Wayne, Akron, and Cincinnati (most airports within a 3 hr. drive) and found the best price was an American non-stop flight out of Dayton for Under $230/pp round trip. It's well worth the 2.5 hour drive to Dayton to save over $120/pp.

[DanJ]

Dan - We live in London as well and I agree with you about driving to Detroit and flying from there. I checked prices flying from London to Miami and flying Detroit to Miami and to us it worked out cheaper to drive to Detroit and fly from there. Plus I don't like the little planes that you have to go on to fly from London to Toronto to catch a connecting flight to Miami.

 

It's funny, I prefer the little planes to the big ones. The Dash 8's Air Canada flies have 2x2 seats, so no middles, and a decent amount of leg room. The Saab 340's Northwest flies from here have 1x2 leather seats. I hated getting off either of those, then cramming into the 3x3 on the A320 for the longer flight.

[gailc]

I agree with Dan on the smaller planes. The small jets are very comfortable. They are also faster to get on & off.

 

I check N.W. & Midwest a couple times a day. Can you believe that N.W. raised their price again!! If we go Midwest on the Fri. after Thanksgiving, we save about $855.00 roundtrip for both of us. We do have to add to the price transportation, an extra night at a hotel, & extra expenses. I'm still researching the transportation from FLL to Miami so not sure on the cost. But I'm sure that we will still save quite a bit by flying 2 days ahead on Midwest.

 

The farthest we would drive to catch a flight would be Grand Rapids which is 1 hour away. They have most of the airlines there. The problem is that we never know what the weather will be around Thanksgiving.

 

Gail

[phabric]

Any update yet.

[travlcrayZ]

I agree with Dan on the smaller planes. The small jets are very comfortable. They are also faster to get on & off.

 

I check N.W. & Midwest a couple times a day. Can you believe that N.W. raised their price again!! If we go Midwest on the Fri. after Thanksgiving, we save about $855.00 roundtrip for both of us. We do have to add to the price transportation, an extra night at a hotel, & extra expenses. I'm still researching the transportation from FLL to Miami so not sure on the cost. But I'm sure that we will still save quite a bit by flying 2 days ahead on Midwest.

 

The farthest we would drive to catch a flight would be Grand Rapids which is 1 hour away. They have most of the airlines there. The problem is that we never know what the weather will be around Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Gailc! It looks like you have done your homework! I live 1/2 r. north of Grand Rapids and have also been checking flights- from flint ,dtw,gr,lansing,south bend...etc.We are going to FT. Lauderdale for a cruise March 8 and can't find anything under about 350 for our time frame. Does Midwest change their itinerary at all, because when I checked them out of Muskegon, they only fly on Tuesday and Sunday? NOw nervous about booking NW also. Just looking for a good deal or something close to one!:o Karen

 

Gail

.............

[gailc]

travlcrayZ - It's always nice to see someone else from Michigan on the boards. I know I've been thru Pierson, but it's been many years ago. I'm originally from Grand Rapids. My husband is from Muskegon.

 

Midwest flies everyday out of Muskegon. Their schedule does change on the weekends. We have only flown Midwest to Las Vegas a few times & have never flown to Ft. Lauderdale on Midwest before. Did you go directly to Midwest website to check for flights? That's what I do & book our flights on their website. I thought they flew everyday to FLL, but I'm not positive. I have been checking Fri., Nov. 25, 2006 & Sat., Nov. 26,2006 for flights.

 

We would rather fly N.W. out of Muskegon directly to Miami since that's where the Freedom of the Seas will be docked. We just can't figure out what to do.

 

What cruise are you going on & have you cruised before? What are the dates you want to book your flights? I'll look it up for you to see what I can find out for you?

 

Gail

[travlcrayZ]

Hi Gail.....well for starters I am mostly looking into the deal flights on like Travelocity etc and those were the dates that were only on tuesday and sunday. I did check the Midwest website this morning and their flights are going for $400 plus for our dates...there are alot of deals out there the past 2 weeks so I should be able to get a decent flight for around 200 or 250 but..............who knows. We are going on the Century by Celebrity for a 9 day western caribbean leaving march 9th. We need flights down the 8th and back the 18th. I also checked BEstfares.com and they had a lot of flights too but most of the good deals have to be used by march 1st.Thanks for checking!

[gailc]

I had just looked for flights on Midwest. I used March 15 for your return which was wrong. Came up with a good price, though. Your return date makes the price go much higher. Sometimes you can get a better price by going directly to an airlines website. Try that, too. Midwest also goes out of G.R.

 

Have a nice cruise!

 

Gail

[travlcrayZ]

Thanks Gail! Yes I have noticed that flying home on saturday makes a difference.And sunday doesn't make a difference either...they are both higher. Oh well.Its ok, its not like I am not going to go just because of higher flights......I will just keep looking!!:D Happy cruising to you!

[Tbuzzard]

I have been looking for a decent price for air from Detroit to Ft. Lauderdale

4/14 to 4/23. Booked on the Liberty but NW prices are about $550-$650pp The airfare is almost as must as the 8 day cruise. Other carriers are not too much better. Any suggestions?

[DanJ]

I beleive 4/14 is Good Friday, so that might have something to do with it.