Northwest Air,
pilots brace
for strike

Isle tourism would be disrupted
if a deal isn't reached by Aug. 28

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Both sides in a contract dispute between Northwest Airlines Corp. and its pilots were arguing their cases to the public in Honolulu today, as an Aug. 28 strike deadline threatens to shut the airline and disrupt Hawaii's tourism traffic.

A team of executives from the Minnesota-based airline, which has a number of mainland-Hawaii routes and also flies between Hawaii and Japan, had scheduled calls at news media offices to talk about how a pilots strike would damage the local economy.

At the same time, the Northwest unit of the Air Line Pilots Association offered reporters a chance to tour the Honolulu strike headquarters near the airport. The union represents nearly 400 pilots based in Honolulu out of about 5,800 throughout Northwest's system.

At the local strike headquarters, union pilots and their supporters were manning a bank of telephones to keep union members informed on negotiations and what they should do if there is a strike, said Jill Rogers, communications coordinator for the pilots union's Honolulu strike committee.

Meanwhile, both sides declined to comment on the labor talks, which resumed Monday for the first time since July 9.

Northwest is running advertisements in the Honolulu newspapers, however, saying it is offering its top pilots $240,000 a year and that under its proposal, pilots would average $150,000 a year to work 14 days a month.

"It's time to talk about what's fair," the advertisements say.

Northwest said it brings about 20,000 people to Hawaii each week, 10,000 of them from Japan.

Northwest has five flights a day from the mainland to Hawaii and usually boosts that with a Minneapolis-Honolulu direct flight in the fall-winter season. It also flies five flights a day between Hawaii and Japan.

The pilots took a pay cut three years ago to keep the airline alive but their pay came back to the previous levels in 1996. However, in negotiations that began two years ago, they have been seeking wage and benefits improvements in a new contract.

As the talks resumed this week, both sides said they hoped a strike could be avoided.

"In our estimate, a strike helps no one," said Northwest spokes-man Jon Austin.

"Northwest has traditionally been a very tough bargaining company," said pilot Hal Myers, a spokesman for the pilots' strike committee. "I don't think this is any different. We just hope that they take this deadline seriously."

The nationwide strike is set to begin at 6:01 p.m. on Aug. 28 in Hawaii. If the strike does take place, it would be at the end of the busy summer season for mainland-Hawaii travel and many of Northwest's passengers should be able to find seats on other airlines, industry officials say.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.