....lol your mother in law misses a flight and now you want like 4000 people who just want a pension, to have complete financial ruin. Then you will have "fun" while you watch them going to the unemployment line. ^ You are kind of a bitter little person aren't you? :D

Please tell me what a fair wage is. Does it have to be much more than the market rate and 40-50-60% more than the average income? And why are these workers deserving of so much of a higher rate than most of the other workers in the nation?

Nah, I'm a happy guy. :)

I just have no sympathy for those who bring ruin upon themselves, and in fact take a morbid kind of glee from it.

[QUOTE
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!
.[/QUOTE]


It is a bit frightening to think what else may be a challenge to the replacement mechanics.

I wish all of us safe flights!!!

A Union Man's dog
 

The union mentality is difficult to understand. Reading these posts reminded me of a joke I heard years ago.

Four workers were discussing how smart their dogs were.
The first was an engineer, who said his dog could do math with calculations. His dog was named T Square, and he told him to get some paper and draw a square, a circle, and a triangle, which the dog did with no sweat.

The accountant said he thought his dog was better. His dog was named Slide Rule. He told him to fetch a dozen cookies, bring them back, and divide them into piles of three - which he did with no problem.

The chemist said that was good, but he felt his dog was better. His dog, Measure, was told to get a quart of milk and pour seven ounces into a ten-ounce glass. The dog did this with no problem.

All three men agreed this was very good and their dogs were equally smart. They all turned to the Union Member and said "What can your dog do?"

The Teamster member called his dog, whose name was Coffee Break, and said, "Show the fellows what you can do."

Coffee Break went over and ate the cookes, drank the milk, crapped on the paper, had sex with the other three dogs and claimed he injured his back while doing so, filed a grievance for unsafe working conditions, applied for Workman's Compensation, and left for home on sick leave.

Same here.

These guys were faced with a tough decision, but other airline workers at other airlines have been faced with similar issues in recent years and did not strike.

Your perspective is one sided. Mr. Sutton (if this really is true, and I can't trust any hearsay on the internet), is trying to keep his job and support his family. He sees the replacement workers as scabs (the traditional term for those filling this role) who are pawns servind to eliminate Mr. Sutton's job and take food off his familys table. Right or wrong, he is trying to protect himself and his family from a percieved attack, and so he is rather hot under the collar.

We're in a Walmart style race to the bottom.

By the way, I haven't seen it mentioned- did management take a 40% pay, benefit and pension cut yet?

The news sounds about the same in Detroit:

"Northwest Airlines was flying Saturday morning, only hours after its 4,400 airplane mechanics and cleaners struck the nation's fourth-largest carrier, refusing to accept the significant paycuts and layoffs the airline was demanding.

At 7 a.m. the departure board at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Northwest's biggest hub, showed no delays and only three canceled flights -- morning departures to Baltimore, Toronto and Montreal. The arrival board showed no significant delays and only one cancelation, a 7:46 a.m. incoming flight from Saginaw.

At 8:45 a.m., heavy rains darkened the skies across the metro area, but no more departures had been canceled, although 15 of 107 departures were posted as delayed. That is not an unusual number at Metro, where government statistics released earlier this summer showed that 20% to 25% of all flights were canceled or delayed on a typical day.

While most of those delays were less than an hour, flight 1191 to Las Vegas was showing a three-hour delay. Its 8:30 a.m. departure had been pushed back to 11:33 a.m.

Two additional arrivals were canceled -- a 10:43 a.m. flight from Syracuse and 10:49 a.m. flight from Jacksonville. Again, not an unusual number.

Northwest's ticket counters were typically staffed and lines were no longer than usual. Indeed, they may have been a little shorter. Employees who asked not to be identified by name said operations were surprisingly normal."
http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews...2_20050820.htm

You seem to be enamored with the low cost airlines. Please compare their salary schedules with those of NW. You complain that NW is not paying a "fair wage." Is $50,000 a year for a custodian or cleaner a fair wage?

Did you pay for first, or was it an upgrade? If they rescheduled you on first just because you were previously upgraded, that is really nice. On Continental I always know I will be sitting in back when I get a weather/mechanical reschedule. :p
Wow I am not sure I would be thinking "comical." ;) If I forced myself to watch too much of that, I might be thinking of flying another airline. I assume NW will not fly a plane if it was not safe, but I am sure this will add to the tension some people feel when flying.

Easy Way To See Flight Delays?
 

Is there a easy to view on-line web site that list all the NWA flights and there status like; delayed, on time, etc?
Instead of checking each flight individually on nwa.com

Thanks; I figured there would be a few "bumps" in the road.

Just checked SDF schedules for the heck of it and everything has gone out on-time this morning, but I notice the Saturday schedule has really been trimmed down. Only 3 DTW departures, 2 Mesaba, one mainline today.

For MSP, the two AM departures, DC-9's left on-time, #1 arrived on-time, #2 is in-flight and scheduled to arrive early, and the morning DC-9 flight to MEM (which I think will be ax'd for a CRJ soon) departed on-time.

Looks like schedule as usual per timetable starting Monday.

SDF_Traveler

On Time Source
 

Thank you. ^

I too resent such stupidity. I've spent seven years in school post-high school and work on average 80 hours per week, but I am not a working person because I use my brain. I don't like being told by someone with less education and who works fewer hours that he is a working person and I am not.

To whatever extent I had sympathy for the NWA mechanics, statements like this take it all away. They made their bed, let them lie in it.

One final note for all those sympathetic to these people. Corporations exist for one purpose, to make money for shareholders. Providing jobs is not the goal of the corporation, but a byproduct of fulfilling its goal. Any time the interests of the shareholders conflict with those of the workers, the shareholders must, as a matter of law, win. If outsourcing mechanics will save NWA money and, by extension, increase shareholder value, then that is what they must do.

[QUOTE=Derrico]Did you pay for first, or was it an upgrade? If they rescheduled you on first just because you were previously upgraded, that is really nice. On Continental I always know I will be sitting in back when I get a weather/mechanical reschedule. :p


Elite upgrade for me and miles for my wife. I agree that it was nice that they were able to keep us in first.