Memo To US Air... THIS Is How You Do It!

Check off another item on the dwindling list of tasks needing resolution in the merger between Delta Air Lines and Northwest. Late Monday, a federal arbitrator signed off on a plan to integrate both pilot groups into a single seniority list, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Pilot seniority is often the most contentious issue facing any airline merger -- just ask pilots at US Airways, who are still bickering over the issue three years after the merger with America West -- and there were some problems meeting the goal at Delta, as well.

As ANN reported, initial merger talks fell apart in February after pilots at Delta and Northwest -- at that time, each was represented by a separate branch of the Air Line Pilots Association -- failed to reach terms on a deal to combine seniority lists if the merger were to proceed. Both sides had wanted at least tentative agreement on such terms... but they failed to reach it.

That brought a temporary halt to merger proceedings... but Delta later went ahead with a merger announcement on April 14, buoyed by a last-minute deal reached with its own pilots on a new merger-friendly contract. Northwest pilots came around to that basic contract agreement later, though both sides agreed early on to bring in a federal mediator to work out a combined seniority list.

The issues facing both pilot groups are similar to those which have thwarted progress at US Airways. As a whole, the pilots at Delta -- which, for all intents and purposes, bought out Northwest -- have less time in the cockpit than their counterparts at the Eagan, MN-based airline.

Delta's pilot workforce is also younger, as many of the airline's most senior pilots opted to take early retirement ahead of Delta's September 2005 bankruptcy filing. That means more Delta pilots will be gaining seniority in the years ahead than those coming from Northwest, which will further drag down lower-time Northwest pilots' hopes of attaining left-seat status.

Decidedly unlike the ongoing battle at US Airways, however -- where high-time US Air pilots voted out ALPA and created their own union, after a mediator issued a proposed seniority list that favored low-time America West pilots -- cockpit crews at Northwest seem to have agreed to take one for the team, so to speak, in order to move forward.

Calling the arbitrator's new list "fair and equitable," Lee Moak, chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association unit at Delta, called the agreement "a historic labor first and stands in stark contrast to traditional airline merger timelines where labor issues can take years to resolve, often at the expense of both labor and the merged corporation.

"The Delta pilot group is now the largest pilot group in the world, and just weeks after the merger closed, is operating under one collective bargaining agreement and integrated under a single seniority list," Moak added. As both sides had already agreed to honor the arbitrator's decision, the new agreement went into effect immediately for the combined airline's 12,000-strong pilot ranks.

So, how did the list shake out? For the moment, neither side has provided many details... and a prepared statement from ALPA didn't provide much insight.

Saying the list was based on a "ratioed status and category" methodology, ALPA said pilots are "ratioed into the new list based on a staffing formula and the aircraft flown by each pilot group with a rational treatment for the minor attrition differences," including provisions to keep pilots at both airlines in the cockpits of each carrier's respective widebody aircraft for the next five years.

FMI: www.delta.com, www.alpa.org