Opus

Northwest to cut capacity to counter high fuel




WASHINGTON, April 3 (Reuters) - Northwest Airlines (NWA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it would park aircraft and cut domestic capacity by 5 percent below planned levels next fall to counter skyrocketing fuel costs.
The carrier, which will remove between 15 and 20 mostly older aircraft from its fleet, hopes that attrition will cover any need for fewer employees once the changes are in place. The company said it has no plans to seek wage concessions.
Northwest is expanding international service to maximizerevenue from premium business customers, and will review whether changes to that schedule are needed later this year.
Delta Air Lines (DAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) announced similar capacity cuts last month, including a proposal to eliminate 2,000 jobs, mostly through buyouts and attrition. Other airlines are also trimming growth. (Reporting by John Crawley; Editing by Gary Hill)

Superpilot92

I cant find anything anywhere that says whether this is in addition to what was announced before or if this is the same reduction. Either way if anything is positive about any of this the airlines are finally raising prices and learning to stay lean and not overspend or over hire. It sucks that things are slowing and the up swing was so short but lets hope that the airlines have learned from from of their previous mistakes. This sure is a crazy industry.

newKnow

I hate to transfer blame; "high fuel cost," but Age 60 (now Age 65) will intensify the effects of this capacity cut.

Also, for us (NWA) the expansion of Compass will upset a lot of displaced pilots.

With that, we have only ourselves to blame....

UnlimitedAkro

The word from NWA hiring dept. is today was the last interview class.

maddogmax

The last new hire class is April 28th

surreal1221

Reducing capacity. . .while leaving prices the same.

Yeah, that'll work.

nwaf16dude

Super, These are definitely new cuts. The previously announced cuts did not include 757's or A319/320. Not happy about the cuts, but I'm surprised that it was only 12 DC-9s. I don't expect (crossing my fingers) that they will furlough anyone.

By the way, let me be the first to say that we all wish you would change your avatar back to the old one.

DrPepper

Compass is job security for NWA pilots, thats why the contract was made from day one to allow flowback. At least if the four letter F word does happen this time it will be FLOW... Your guys wont be out on the street, to me thats a good things.

capncrunch

Compass is worse than a furlough for an Alaskan at NWA(myself). Lets hope there are no furloughs...that would be sweeter than the cream pie Boston was named after.

Past V1

so much for the impression that 50 seater RJ's were the first to be cut...