=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2008/02/21/BUU7V602F.= DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, February 21, 2008 (SF Chronicle) Delta-Northwest deal must handle pilot seniority/Issue from 1986 merger is = still in arbitration Harry R. Weber, Associated Press (02-21) 04:00 PST Atlanta - -- Northwest Airlines Corp. pilots have integration issues to sort out. Not just the ones with their counterparts at Delta Air Lines Inc. that threaten to scuttle talks to combine the two carriers. The ones with Republic Airlines, too. From 1986. An arbitrator is still sorting out seniority questions from that deal, illustrating just how much the point matters. Employees at the top of the list get first choice on vacations, the best routes and the bigger planes, which they get paid more for flying. The boards of Delta and Northwest had been expected to vote Wednesday on= a combination projected to be worth $20 billion if a pilot deal was in place. It was not clear if the boards met, though a person familiar with the negotiations said a merger deal would not be announced today as had been hoped. That person said a deal now could be announced at the beginning of next week, presuming everything falls into place by then. Delta and Northwest don't need a labor agreement between the pilots unio= ns before announcing a combination, but having one in place could help speed up the integration of the companies down the line. "I think they obviously recognize that with an unhappy pilots group, that could make the merger and integration process painful and expensive," said Dan Kasper, an airline consultant with LECG in Cambridge, Mass. Pilots at US Airways and America West waited until after the 2005 announcement that the airlines would combine to try to hammer out a seniority and joint contract accord. Nearly three years later, no joint pilot contract has been reached. People close to the Delta-Northwest talks said the pilots unions have agreed on a comprehensive joint contract, but cannot agree how seniority for the 12,000 pilots would work under a combined carrier. John Kasarda, a management professor at the University of North Carolina, said it would be prudent for airline executives to wait for the pilots to settle their differences. "One more week to resolve a pivotal issue would generate far greater returns to both airlines," said Kasarda, who has studied airline labor issues. Blending seniority lists is always a problem when airlines combine because different unions have different rules. "That is a resolvable issue, and I believe it will be resolved," he said. A problem for the unions is the difference in age of their pilots. Northwest pilots tend to be older than Delta pilots because many senior pilots retired from Delta during the run-up to the airline's 2005 bankruptcy filing. Talk of airline consolidation has heightened in recent months amid persistently high fuel prices, which are eating away at the industry's bottom line. A combination of Delta and Northwest would create the world's largest airline in terms of traffic, before any divestitures regulators might require. Many terms of how a combined Delta-Northwest would operate had been resolved by Tuesday, two people close to the talks said. The airline would be based in Atlanta, would be called Delta and would have Delta's chief executive, Richard Anderson, as head of the new company. Pilots at Northwest still have unresolved issues 22 years after the carrier's combination with Republic Airlines. Northwest, with its Pacific routes, had a fleet of wide-body aircraft and pilots who aspired to fly them when it bought domestically focused Republic. Republic pilots poured into the ranks, some with years of experience that would put them in line for the big planes ahead of Northwest pilots. An arbitrator decided that premerger Northwest pilots would stay in line for the big jets ahead of Republic pilots. That locked some pilots out of wide-body flying for decades and caused serious bitterness. The Air Line Pilots Association said an arbitrator is still working on some of the issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you wish to unsubscribe from the AIRLINE List, please send an E-mail to: "listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". Within the body of the text, only write the following:"SIGNOFF AIRLINE".