COURTESY PHOTO
Northwest Airlines' decision to phase out its Boeing 747 jets also means the airline is closing its pilots base in Hawaii, moving about 140 jobs to the mainland.
Northwest’s decision
to halt 747 use will cost
isles 140 pilot jobsThe airline is shifting to
operate more DC-10 jets
Northwest Airlines is changing the type of aircraft it uses in its routes to and from Hawaii and the result will be the loss of about 140 Hawaii jobs in October, officials of the airline and its pilots' union said yesterday.
The Airline Pilots Association union was told in late May that the Boeing 747-200 base in Honolulu would be closed by the end of October, because the airline no longer has use for the 747s. There was no public announcement of the decision.
ALPA officials said that while the change will mean a loss of Hawaii-based jobs, its Hawaii Boeing 747 pilots have a lot of seniority and some will be able to stay with the airline and relocate. However, the change means Northwest won't have a pilots' base in Honolulu until possibly May 2004, when Northwest says it may base McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s in the islands.
But the DC-10s also are becoming dated, passed over in favor of smaller, more-efficient aircraft.
Other airlines, such as Hawaiian Airlines, are shifting to smaller, more fuel-efficient planes such as 767s.
Yesterday, Northwest would say only that the pilot base in Honolulu will close because of the decision to stop flying the Boeing 747.
Will Holman, a Minneapolis spokesman for the Airline Pilots Association unit at Northwest, said the airline is in the middle of a string of furloughs that it blames on "force majeure," events beyond the airline's control.
The Hawaii aircraft shift is being blamed on the latest, the loss of travelers because of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak that hurt international travel, particularly to and from Asia.
Northwest also has used the terrorist disasters of September 2001 and the war in Iraq as excuses to cut flights and trim compensation to laid-off pilots, Holman said.
Internationally, the union expects the Northwest pilot furloughs that will total 788 system-wide this month will run to about 1,100 by January. Meanwhile, October will be the last Hawaii-based month for its 747 pilots, the union said.
The airline advised the state Department of Labor last week that it was letting go a flight manager, a regional director of flying, an administrative associate and two support associates and 134 pilots, all based in Hawaii.
Northwest said that while the majority of the layoffs are pilots' jobs, the Hawaii job losses also involve members of another union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
The airline told the state government that the change in its Hawaii staffing is a direct result of "the sudden emergence of the SARS epidemic and its dramatic impact on our operations."
Earlier this year, Northwest halved its Asia-Hawaii service.
