Northwest can’t
rely on Clinton

From staff and wire reports

Northwest Airlines Corp. may not be able to count on White House intervention if its pilots strike at the end of the week.

The climate is considerably different from a year and a half ago when President Clinton stopped a minutes-old strike by pilots at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines. Back then, there was little outcry from congressional Democrats with close labor ties. In addition, American's independent pilots union had no AFL-CIO affiliation as the Northwest pilots do.

A day after the president established a Presidential Emergency Board to study the American conflict and recommend a settlement, barring a strike for 60 days, administration officials were quick to say the action was not precedent-setting.

"We will tell them over and over and over again that it was a combined set of circumstances that caused the president to act in this case," Clinton aide Bruce Lindsey said.

Northwest officials have said they are focused on reaching a negotiated settlement with the Air Line Pilots Association, but they have been trying to pave an indirect path to the White House in case a strike becomes imminent.

"I really believe that if the president acts, it's because he concludes there will be dire economic consequences," said Elliott Seiden, Northwest's chief Washington lobbyist.

Seven Republican governors already have written the president to say that a strike would be disastrous for their states.

Northwest executives were in Honolulu last week, telling government and business leaders that a strike could hurt Hawaii's economy because Northwest carries 21 percent of all Japan-Hawaii passenger traffic and 10 percent of mainland-Hawaii traffic. Northwest said it wasn't asking Hawaii leaders to take sides but suggested they could press for presidential intervention.

Gov. Ben Cayetano, who met the Northwest delegation, has declined to comment. The airline has said it will begin winding down its services Wednesday to prepare for a strike that could begin just after 6 p.m (Hawaii time) Friday.

The 1920s law governing airlines and railroads makes it easy for Clinton to step in if mediation fails. The law says the president can halt a strike for 60 days when it threatens "substantially to interrupt interstate commerce to a degree such as to deprive any section of the country of essential transportation service."

Lindsey handled the American situation for Clinton in 1997, but the White House isn't saying who will take the lead on Northwest if negotiations follow expectations by going down to the wire.

"We feel that if Northwest Airlines is counting on a Presidential Emergency Board to save them, they are heading down a dead-end street," said Northwest 727 Capt. Ray Miller, who has been involved with union strike preparation.

In other strike-related news, the major airlines are making their normally flexible, first-class and business-class tickets nonrefundable on some routes. The temporary move is an attempt to prevent speculative booking by travelers afraid of being stranded by a Northwest strike.

"Passengers are going to have to make a decision who they're going to fly on," United Airlines' spokes-man Joe Hopkins said today.

Airlines traditionally have justified charging higher prices for expensive first-class and business-class fares because they are flexible and refundable. But the airlines are concerned that a passenger holding a Northwest ticket might decide he or she needs back-up protection and book another ticket on a competing carrier -- just in case the pilots at Northwest go on strike.

The airlines quietly put the policy effect last week for flights to and from Northwest's hubs -- Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit and Memphis, Tenn.