Northwest TA
 

Some initial info on the NWA TA:


Pay
Across-the-Board decrease of 23.9%
Across-the-Board decrease of 23.9%

Defined Contribution Plan
2006-07: 5%
2008: 6%
2009: 6.5%
2010: 7%
2011/thereafter: 8%

Equity
• Claims-based approach.
• ALPA claim of $888M
• Based on total claims pool of 5.1-5.6B
• Approximates 13.4% of claims before any dilution

Profit Sharing
Allocation: Percentage of W-2 Wages
Payout:
A. If the Company's pre-tax margin is less than or equal to 10%, the payout would be equal to 10% of pre-tax income (excluding unusual, special or extraordinary items) in excess of $1M.
B. If the Company's pre-tax margin is greater than 10%, the payout would be equal to:
(1) 10% of what pre-tax income (excluding unusual, special or extraordinary items) would have been if the pre-tax margin were 10% less $1M; PLUS
(2) 15% of pre-tax income (excluding unusual, special or extraordinary items) in excess of the pre-tax income amount if the pre-tax margin were 10%.

Success Sharing Performance Bonus Plan
The goals will be based on a metric or combination of metrics. Examples:
• On-time performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Financial measures
• Attendance
Pilot payout thresholds will be as follows: (as a % of W-2 wages)
• Threshold - .5%
• Target - 1.0%
• Maximum -1.25%
Payouts to be paid in March of the following year.

Monthly Maximums
DOS + 12: Range from 75-88 with 2 hour flex by position (1/2 hour increments up to 4 months per year).
After DOS + 12: Range from 80-88 with same flex.
Reduce Reserve Days Off to 12/11.
Reduce Pay for Full Month Sick in Flex Month.
Agree to discuss at a later time a procedure permitting a pilot to pick up open time to fill to the maximum and direct the remainder to the ALPA Bank.

Staffing
Eliminate open time in the monthly
schedule bidding process.

Monthly Guarantees
Blockholder: Reduce to 68 hours.

Crew Augmentation
Replace Captain Augment with First Officer Augment.

Pay Items
RIGs: 1 for 3.75 for all aircraft. Increase back of clock to 1 for 2.
Trip: Redefine "Hours Flown" to pay on a trip basis, rather than a flight basis.
Deadhead: 50% pay and 100% credit for deadheading. No turn off of negative bank flyback.

Layover Hotels
Eliminate "downtown" and "downtownlike" location requirements for domestic locations.

Vacation
Reduce Daily Vacation Rate to 2.8 hrs.

Sick Leave
Enhanced Sick Management program.
Reduce short term sick pay as follows for rolling 12 month period:
1st call – 100%
2nd call – 75% (100% with a doctor’s
excuse)
3rd and additional call – 75%
Downline calls paid at 100%
Sick call makeup permitted (pay, credit and number of calls).

Duration
12/31/10 or 12/31/11 depending on date of exit from C11.

Is there any information out on scope/Newco? I thought that was one of the main points?

Pilots Union Agrees to Put NWA Contract to Vote
 

Pilots Union Agrees to Put Northwest Contract to Vote
By SUSAN CAREY, Wall Street Jornal
March 4, 2006 9:54 p.m.

The Air Line Pilots Association leadership at Northwest Airlines late Saturday unanimously agreed to put a tentative contract agreement its negotiators reached Friday with the company out to a vote by Northwest's 5,000 pilots, the union said.

Terms of the tentative accord weren't immediately disclosed. Northwest on Friday said the potential deal delivers the added $358 million in annual savings it was seeking from ALPA. The airline said then that it was pleased by the proposed deal, agreement on which lessens the odds the pilots will strike. (See article1.)

The union more than a year ago voluntarily agreed to pare $265 million from the pilots' annual expenses, in a bid to keep Northwest solvent. The nation's fourth-largest airline by traffic ultimately filed for bankruptcy-court protection last September, and quickly raised the amount of overall labor cuts it was seeking from its 32,500 employees to $1.4 billion from $1.1 billion.

ALPA, in a message to its members late today, didn't say how long the voting will take. Normally such balloting takes about a month. The leadership council also hasn't agreed whether to endorse the deal, be neutral on it or recommend that members reject it. That decision is expected mid-month after a regularly scheduled meeting of the union's leadership council, ALPA said in a message to members.

Having a tentative deal puts off, for now, the possibility the pilots would strike if the bankruptcy-judge overseeing Northwest's bankruptcy reorganization would rule for the company and throw out the pilots' current contract. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Allan Gropper was expected to rule on that issue last Wednesday. But because bargaining was continuing, the judge -- who earlier told both sides that a consensual decision was the better option -- declined to issue an order.

In the ensuing two days, both sides negotiated intensively, with Doug Steenland, Northwest's chief executive officer, playing an active role in the talks. Among the last disputed issues were sick leave payments, retirement benefits and pilot equity in the reorganized Northwest. An earlier sticking point, which Mr. Steenland has said was surmounted, involved the introduction of larger regional jets into Northwest's route network.

ALPA had resisted Northwest's initial plans that all regional jets of 70 to 100 seats be flown by a new subsidiary that would employ pilots who aren't on the airline's seniority list. Later, Northwest backed down on that idea and agreed that all planes of fewer than 76 seats would be flown by others, but that Northwest pilots would have the ability to fly jets of 77 seats or more. That was a concern because Northwest has about 150 elderly DC-9 aircraft that seat about 100 passengers. Those planes are going to be replaced eventually and ALPA wanted to keep that work.

Northwest reached an agreement2 last Wednesday, hours before Judge Gropper's expected ruling, with its flight attendants, obviating the need for the judge to rule on the company's request that the current contract of the 9,000 attendants be abrogated. Terms haven't been spelled out to the union members, pending a ratification vote that could take several weeks. But Northwest said the accord meets its needs to $195 million in annual savings.

A third group, the International Association of Machinists union, currently is voting on Northwest's latest offer. Results should be known in about a week. The accord would cut the annual expenses of those 14,000 ramp, reservations and customer-service workers by $190 million a year.

Northwest, Eagan, Minn., posted a 2005 loss of $2.6 billion, compared with a prior-year loss of $891 million. Excluding reorganization and other unusual items in the latest year, the loss would have been $1.4 billion. For the month of January, the carrier had an operating loss of $65 million, suggesting it is losing $2.1 million a day on an operating basis.

If all three contracts are ratified and the three big unions don't strike, Northwest would be free to work on other aspects of its restructuring, which include cutting its non-labor costs, revamping the contracts of its regional-airline affiliates and renegotiating its aircraft leases.

Cost-cutting by airlines that have emerged from bankruptcy, including UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and US Airways Group Inc., and those that have restructured without resorting to Chapter 11, such as AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, have effectively set the bar for Northwest. Delta Air Lines, another big hub-and-spoke airline, remains in court protection, having declared insolvency the same day as Northwest. All face continued competition from growing low-fare airlines that have lower costs, a gap made all the more painful by currently high fuel prices.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1141...8.html?mod=DAI

not defined yet in the TA summary sheet. It appears we've allowed NEWCO to happen, yet a former LEC rep told me he believes we've captured 76 seat and above flying.....with the 1/2 pay for DH and the RJ issue unresolved, this TA is a far shot from being approved. In fact the way it stands now, I'd say it has better than 50/50 chance of being voted down

Seems like a page right out of the UAL playbook. Threaten to split the airline into mainline and LCC with separate lists, then completely gut the scope as a "concession" for keeping all the flying under one contract.

I'm assuming that 23.9% pay decrease is what they have already taken, right. Otherwise max 320 ca would be about $105 and a dc-9 is under $100.

Don't worry, NWA pilots are just buying time so they can coordinate a strike with Delta. That will shut down 30% of the nation's air travel. Then maybe that will get someone's attention!

Attention
 

I am sure that if they did that Jetblue, SWA, Airtran and Frontier would get a lot of attention.

SkyHigh

Would SWA, Jetblue and Airtran fly to Europe and Asia?

:rolleyes:
You aren't serious, are you? Because IMHO, it will never happen.

Fireman0714, are you serious? The pilot group at NWA will never approve that TA. Not only are they financially penalized for calling in sick, the company wants to remove the Captain augmentation for long-haul 2-pilot a/c flying (B747-400 TPAC, A330 TPAC/TATL), reduce the blockholder monthly minimum and eliminate all open flying during the regular monthly bid run.

Problems? I see plenty. First of all, the elimination of full pay for sick time is not going to sit well with our most senior pilots. Imagine your 2nd sick call in a year is for a 12-day trans-pacific trip on the -400. It would be your only trip in the month and now if you call in sick you'll be paid 3/4 of what you could actually make? No dice.

The removal of the captain augmentation clause means that all First Officers on the 747-400 and A330 will now have to be type rated on the aircraft means a lot of extra training and expense, that the company cannot afford considering the rest of the cutbacks proposed.

If any open flying is eliminated during the bid run, that will reek havoc with Detroit, considering 90% of the pilots based there commute, and build their schedule around commuter-friendly trips......

I could go on for days, but I don't have the time. This TA is a piece of junk, and it'll never fly.

Steal'in took the worst part of UAL and USA consessions and made them worse for us.

The 23.9% paycut we took in Nov was to last "only" 2 months. It's permanent now. No more salary cuts.

Open Time
 

Perhaps if they did away with open time they could keep more pilots working instead of on furlough?

SKyHigh

Eros and Maxjet
 

Eros and Maxjet do. And lets not forget all the asian and european companies that are ready to jump in.

Change
 

The changes could be very inconvenient, but so is unemployment. I don't know if the guys who are on furlough have a say but my guess is that they don't care about captain sick leave issues right now. They just want their jobs back.

SkyHigh

I'll bet anything that they won't do away with open time. Right now, there are 4 pages of open trips on the DTW A320 f/0 board. 13 trips departing 8-12 march alone. Last month, they were calling up captains to sit in the f/0 seat to fly some trips. It's not the schedulers fault. That's how NWA works. It's cheaper to use reserves and let pilots to pick from the open board than to "rehire" furloughed pilots. I don't like it, but that how things are done.

Much of your proposed contract changes appear to be what the UAL pilots currently work under. Some as a result of the two bankruptcy modifications and some were in place beforehand, the crew augmentation issue being one.

I’ll be very surprised if the T/A fails, but of course a lot depends on what and how your MEC handles the tentative.

Still, my $$$ is on it passing. :)

Skyhigh....IMHO...it's not those specific items; total 39% paycut...1/2 pay for dead head....sick call policy and pay....hotel changes taht are show stoppers. If the company is able to fly 76-100 seat jets under the NEWCO banner ( and that isn't clear yet) then our brothers and sisters who are furloughed will never come back. We will be voting NO for them, not for those other items. NWA pilots are willing to fly the 70-100 seat jets for low rates, we just want to be able to do it...is that asking too much?...BTW how did your cabinet hanging go?

so what is up with the whole "NewCo" deal? Alive, Dead or some new "S" company (3rd regional). I'm assuming it's part of the concessions.

Is it 100 (76 seat jets) or 76 (100 seat jets)?

NEWCO is alive....the numbers ahven't been formalized...however an unidentified reliable source........looks like 55 76 seat jets to be flown by pinnacle or Mesaba, and NEWCO gets the first 90 77-110 seat jets. After that some sort of ratio between NEWCO and NWA.....Again not confirmed, but if that's true, my belief is that it will be voted down...My vote will be NO

count me in....NO!

I don't get it.
 

Why would they do away with open time and reduce the monthly garuntee unless they wanted to spread the flying out over more pilots?

SkyHigh