The  Seattle – Alaska Cruise season is about to begin, and from a modest start the region has turned into a major cruise hub feeding the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Besides the hugely popular Alaska cruises the Port of Seattle offers many 3 day cruises to Vancouver and the local region.

What began small — with just six Alaska-bound sailings in 1999 and about 3,300 passengers — has mushroomed this year to almost 200 departures and an estimated 370,000 passengers.
Five major lines will base nine ships at Seattle’s two downtown cruise-ship docks: Holland America, Norwegian, Celebrity, Princess and Royal Caribbean.
The Alaska cruises go from May 5 until late September, but the first big cruise liner to sail into Elliott Bay will be Holland America’s Volendam on April 22, en route to Hawaii.
Cruises from Seattle and other United States ports have boomed, due to the ease of driving or flying to such ports and because of security concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Seattle Times: More cruises than ever from Seattle.

Northwest Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines have  teamed up to offer a code share agreement. With Northwest’s strength in the Hawaiian market it  will soldify Hawaiian Airlines position with the competition from Mesa’s Go! Airlines entry this past week.

That means Northwest customers who fly to Honolulu and connect to Kauai, Maui or Hawaii’s Big Island will transfer to a Hawaiian Airlines interisland flight (although they also can book other airlines if wished). The code-share agreement also allows passengers enrolled in one airline’s frequent-flyer programs to earn frequent-flyer miles by flying the other airline.
Northwest flies more than 50,000 passengers to and from Hawaii per week, including from Seattle. Honolulu-based Hawaiian provides 100 interisland flights each day. via The Seattle Times

The Sky Team Pilots Association representing the pilots for all of the Sky Team airlines worldwide have signed a support agreement to support the Delta and Northwest pilots in their contract negotiations with their respective airlines. They are saying that they support the efforts of the pilots in their contract negotiations.

However, will these pilots also support the pilots and their families if the airlines shut down because of hard ball tactics? It is very easy to use words and concepts when the airlines are fighting for survival.

Today’s Mutual Assistance Agreement calls upon member pilots to “pledge [their] wholehearted and unwavering support to the pilots of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines in their effort to achieve a comprehensive agreement with the airline and avoid a rejection of their contract by management.” The Agreement also provides for specific and extensive measures of mutual support should the Delta or Northwest pilots exercise a legal strike in response to Delta and Northwest management’s actions. via ALPA News Release.

And even though I probably do not agree with this myself, it does make you wonder. All of these airlines are not doing well. With Delta’s and Northwest’s focus on international flying, would the demise of either Delta or Northwest help or hurt these other pilots and their own job security? My bet is it would help them.

My hopes and prayers are that the pilots for Delta and Northwest do not take this as a sign of solidarity and create a resolve based upon quicksand.

The Sky Team Pilots Association membership consists of pilots from AeroMexico, Air France, Alitalia, CSA Czech Airlines, KLM, Korean Air, Continental, Northwest and Delta.

Northwest Airlines is hitting crunch time in their pilot and flight attendant contract negotiations. On Friday the bankruptcy judge will have the discretion to void the contract between these labor groups. Progress has been made on many fronts with the pilots so it will be an interesting period.

Chief Executive Doug Steenland told the Star Tribune for a story published Thursday that the deal “addresses the pilots’ concerns over jobs, outsourcing and making sure that the replacement aircraft for the DC-9 gets flown (by Northwest pilots), and that represents significant progress.”The “lions share” of job-protection issues have been resolved, including saving pilot jobs in the event of a merger, the sale of part of Northwest’s business or code-sharing arrangements with other airlines, he said.

Northwest and the Air Line Pilots Association have been negotiating since early January and the pilots are taking a strike authorization vote that concludes Tuesday.If the pilots and flight attendants fail to reach agreements with Northwest by Friday, a bankruptcy judge could void their existing labor contracts and allow the airline to impose new pay rates and work rules. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper also could give the parties a second extension to conclude their talks. via the AP Wire.

In what could be a fatal blow to Northwest Airlines, the bankruptcy judge told them to keep negotiating with the pilots union, while the union says that if the contract is thrown out, they will strike. A strike at this stage would destroy the company, putting thousands out of work, including the striking pilots.

I can understand the frustration of the pilots. They have typically flown military or training schools for very little money and at great risk to get a position with the major airline. They have built their futures on the notion that they will have a certain pay scale. And now it is being ripped out from under them.

But the reality is that the marketplace will not allow the airlines to charge what they previously did. For an airline to be profitable, and why own a unprofitable business, they need to have their costs in line with the marketplace. A major cost is salaries, and they have shown by entering bankruptcy that the business is not sustainable at its present level with their salary structure. So it is a catch 22 for the pilots.

Keep the company working by taking a pay cut that you do not like? Or kill the company and your paycheck by striking? Not a pleasant situation, but as a famous singer said, “sometimes it is better to fold them than hold em.”

Northwest, which filed for bankruptcy protection in September, has said a strike could kill it, which would put pilot pensions at risk.
The carrier also says a strike would be illegal. That’s because airline-union relations are governed by the Railway Labor Act, which lays out a lengthy pre-strike procedure that hasn’t been followed at Northwest. On Wednesday, Northwest said it would seek an immediate injunction if either group tries to strike.
Duane Woerth, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, scoffed at that idea, saying, “How can you be ordered to work when you don’t have a contract?”
While the airline and the unions all said they would rather make a deal, the question remains as to what would happen if the union went on strike in response to the contracts being overturned. Workers at other bankrupt airlines have threatened strikes, but ultimately made deals. via the Washington Post

Northwest Airlines Pilot’s Union (ALPA) has called for a strike vote. They will be voting to go out on strike as they do not like the concessions the bankruptcy judge is looking at. As I have said previously about the Delta pilots, this is absolute madness. There are too many pilots chasing too few jobs to go out on strike. If they do so, Northwest will no longer exist, they will no longer have the seniority and potential income they had before the strike.

But they are buying into the mob mentality, and that always leads to insane decisions. I have a few friends who are pilots for Northwest, and I hope and pray they show some common sense and do not jeopardize the future of their career and families, and all of the families of the other Northwest employees.

The voting period will last 15 days, with ballots being counted Feb. 28.
If the pilots authorize a strike, the Air Line Pilots Association leadership will have the authority to call a strike if Northwest’s management team imposes terms and conditions of employment on the pilot group.
“Northwest pilots want to reach a consensual agreement with management and ALPA is continuing to work towards that goal, but management’s arrogant and excessive demands are unacceptable and are putting Northwest’s future in serious jeopardy,” said Mark McClain, chairman of the pilots union. “Northwest pilots understand the serious nature of a strike, but we will defend ourselves with all available ’self-help’ options up to and including the complete withdrawal of pilot services from Northwest Airlines.”  via Memphis Business Journal.

This is just unreal. What was the flight attendant thinking bringing a Hand Grenade on a flight. I do not care if it was deactivated, you have to have better judgment than that.

A Northwest Airlines flight attendant faces criminal charges after security officers found a real — but inactive — hand grenade in her carry-on luggage at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, officials said Wednesday.

The flight attendant, a 39-year-old woman from Cordova, Tenn., was scheduled to work on a Milwaukee-to-Detroit flight Tuesday morning when federal Transportation Security Administration officers detected an inert grenade in her baggage, said Kim Brooks, a spokeswoman for the Milwaukee County sheriff’s office. They called sheriff’s deputies, who arrested her about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, Brooks said.

She told deputies she bought the grenade at an Army surplus store as a present for her son, Brooks said. via St. Paul Pioneer Press

Northwest Airlines is in a pickle. They need to upgrade their fleet as the equipment is extremely old, but being in bankruptcy will mean that Northwest’s credit in the toilet. To get their financial house in order, Northwest will need to get significant cuts from employees to attain the BB credit rating to afford new aircraft.

So if you are Northwest’s management,  do you try to keep your employees happy and minimize pay cuts or make sure that you are set up for the future when you emerge from bankruptcy?

It looks like the numbers that Northwest Airlines gave to the bankruptcy judge were off by just a little bit. Say 300 million dollars off. In trying to get greater concessions from their employees, they failed to include the savings they got from temporary pay cuts by employees.

Now I am not the most pro union advocate, in fact I oppose most forms of unionization. But when management lies and deceives a federal court, the unions have some very valid points.

David Davis, the company’s senior vice president for finance, also testified that Northwest ended 2005 with about $300 million more in cash than the company had forecast in October, when it spelled out cost-cutting demands to its unions totaling $1.4 billion.
Northwest has asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper to throw out its labor contracts, saying the company needs deep cuts in jobs, wages and benefits for its union workers to survive.
Davis said the estimates did not include temporary concessions Northwest won from its unions last year because the company assumed it would either prevail in court or the temporary concessions would end after February. Northwest’s attorneys said later the company had no guarantee that the unions would extend the temporary cuts beyond February. via Detroit Free Press.