Hmm, one reported cancellation and you are calling it "one complete disaster."

Might you be a trade unionist?

Actually, I was on a fairly full flight from EWR-MSP that was cancelled. Looks like it was too late at night and they were trying to get all of the planes back to hub cities quicker.

Interestingly enough, one of the bathrooms on my rebooked flight (earlier) was broken. I thought it was very responsible of them to still fly under those circumstances.

GO NWA!!

I'm booking all of my travel on NWA in support of the way they're handling this situation. As you can already see ALPA knows better than to get into this - pilots are the brightest of the bunch. :D

Lets go with smarter

From the newstand


The PFAA strike ballots have been counted. By our members vote, a strike has been rejected. Therefore, the PFAA Executive Board is not authorized to call a strike. We recognize that there may be those Flight Attendants who refuse to cross AMFA's picket line. PFAA contends that no Flight Attendants may be disciplined for such a show of solidarity, and today pledges all available resources to defend and protect such a choice.

Sounds to me like the union wanted a strike!

My problem with this line of reasoning is that it's not the mechanics fault other employees in corporations don't request those same "benefits", which all strike me as pretty basic. The whole rasion d'etre for unions (in a theoretical sense) is to secure a fair set of rules and wages for their members. You can't blame the AMFA for having been successful in the past at doing so, although that seems to be a common thread through all these discussions.

From what I have read the mechanics average $70K, plus overtime (from the MN and MI papers).

The reason I am against the mechanics union is that there are thousands of other mechanics willing to work for much less, that is at the market rate.

What makes union workers so special that they get to make more than others doing or willing to do the same type of job. The answer of course is that a union by definition is nothing more than a legalized monopoly. And with a monopoly, you get monopoly prices. NW is doing the only legal thing they can to get out from under this monopoly.

I also resent being told by union supporters that you must support 'working people' in making a decent wage. Well I go to an office, and it must be a surprise to these people, I work. Most everyone in the country works. Wal-Mart people work. Office people work. We all didn't just win life's lottery as Al Gore used to think.

Wait a sec---no A&P license??? ... qual do these people have if they don't have an A&P license? Wouldn't that make it $58k for someone with no real qualifications? That sounds, um, like a lot to me.

I took some courses towards an A&P license a few years ago when I was living in Dayton since I was flying so much, and I wanted to understand more about planes. It was scary. The people in the class who were pilots and who wanted to work on their own planes were incredibly good. Those looking for a career frightened me. Many of them could barely read, most were clueless, and none of them wanted to be there. They were really bad---I was unsure about flying after seeing who became the mechanics.

Anyhow, I have 3 weeks until I fly back to Johannesburg (then MPM on South African and APL on LAM). No flying until then. They need to clear this mess up.

Never!!!!

Report from MSP on Day 1
 

Good morning all, I am sitting having breakfast at MSP right now as my 0630 to MEM is delayed until at least 0830. Because of this I would have misconnected in MEM to TPA and NW has now rebooked the Mrs and I on the nonstop at 1025. Since we were both in FC they were also able to procure that for us on the TPA flight.

Our flight was originally delayed due to a missing maintainance logbook, and then because of a tire change and finally due to a bad battery. It was a bit comical to watch 5 or 6 of the replacement mechanics figure out how to change a tire on a DC-9!

As far as other delays here this morning, there do seem to be some but not really any more than I would expect to see on any given morning.

I will post more as the morning progresses.

At least the rest of the employee groups want to keep their jobs.

It should be fun watchign the mechanics head for the unemployment line. :)

AMFA members had better practice saying "you want fries with that?".

I suspect you'll be able to see a lot of McDonald's employees in MSP, DTW, and MEM wearing AMFA badges in the near future. :D

"You want fries with that?"

Why do I have a problem with unions? Read this:
Mr. Sutton is a member of Local 5 (mechanic's union in Detroit). How does he advocate treating someone that's simply looking for a job, presumably to support his/her family? He (union rep) thinks the proper course of action is to "make their lives a miserable hell the rest of their lives". If he's willing to treat 1 person this way, he'll treat management and customers that way too.

So, Mr. Sutton...it's my most sincere hope that karma bites you firmly in the ....

1 of 3 flights YEG-MSP cancelled today.

The ALPA made their choice and most are (temporarily) celebrating. I just booked a trip on NW for next Tues. I made my choice but no celebrations yet.

When the Eastern Airline (EAL) mechanics last went on strike a few years ago I was stranded in San Juan (no snide comments please). It took a week to rebook my return and it was on AA. Many of those ex-EAL mechanics later applied for employment at my company plants in Philly and San Juan etc (we had over 2000 employees). In looking over some of their resumes, we noted their pay was approx 40+% higher than my company's pay scale for about the same level of expertease and training.

We added some people but many said our pay scale was too low (we had an union also) and turned down some offers. I was amazed to see how outlandish the EAL pay was. In San Juan and Philly most of the ex-EAL mechanics ended up fixing cars or doing non-mechanics jobs as few mega-bucksmechanics openings were available. Sad but true.

MisterNice

If only NW mgmt would have been smart and hedged their fuel costs, they would be in a much better position financially. Any idiot with half a brain would have known that given two war fronts in the Iraq and Afghanistan, no lasting peace in Isreal (although not a oil producer, it is surrounded by them), ongoing acts of terrorism throughout the world, and massively increased demand for oil particularly in China, that oil prices would climb. Maybe no one thought they would go to $64/barrel, but they would have gone up. I guess all the smart ones with a whole brain are working at Southwest where they DID hedge and are currently paying the equivalent of about $26/barrel for approx 75% of their fuel needs through 2008. No wonder they still can make a profit. Now, I am no WN lover. In fact, I never fly them, but no company should FORCE it's employees to take a hit in the guise of massive layoffs and large pay and benefit reductions because of management's stupidity when it comes to other financial decisions. I will not be flying NW again for a long time until Dougie boy is gone and they have started to treat their employees with respect and dignity and pay a fair wage for work done. Everyone out there seems to be in self-centred mode. If half of your co-workers were to be fired because of management's mis-management of your company, and there was no guarantee that you would still be employed, you'd think about this issue in an entirely different light.