The light breeze our customers may have noticed emanating from the mezzanine of DTW’s Smith Terminal Friday afternoon was airport management breathing a sigh of relief with the news that our hub carrier Northwest Airlines reached a tentative agreement with its pilots represented by the Air Line Pilots Association.
This follows an announcement March 1 that Northwest, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection September 15, 2005, had reached a tentative agreement with the Professional Flight Attendants Association. Membership ratification is the next step. Ratification votes are currently being counted for Northwest’s ground employees represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).
While the Airport Authority takes no position on labor issues between any of our airlines and their employees, we recognize that any strike which would impact the airline’s ability to operate could have been a very serious matter for Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Northwest and its Airlink partners account for 78.4% of DTW’s enplaned passengers and the airline provides over 7,000 jobs in the State of Michigan.
These peacefully settled agreements are important steps in our hub carrier’s endeavor to eventually emerge from Chapter 11 as a stronger and healthier airline.
