Company Watch - Northwest Airlines.

Oct 16, 2006

Some analysts expect airline mergers in the near future. Some analysts expect a wave of airline mergers in the coming months as Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines finalize their bankruptcy reorganization plans. United Airlines Chief Executive Glenn Tilton has said publicly that the industry would benefit from consolidation. Oct 14, 2006

Northwest Airlines will launch daily Hartford-Amsterdam service on July 1. BDL becomes Northwest/KLM's 18th North American gateway to Amsterdam. Five-times-weekly service from Detroit to Brussels will begin May 7 and to Dusseldorf June 5. The latter is the second German destination NWA serves from DTW after Frankfurt. The two routes become daily on June 15. On the same day it will increase frequencies to AMS to five-times-weekly. Winter season flights will grow to four-times-weekly. Oct 12, 2006

Northwest Airlines will one month later, a second daily Boston-AMS will be added. Northwest also will take over operation of KLM's twice-daily AMS-Newark service. The Dutch carrier will begin operating a third daily New York JFK-Amsterdam flight on July 1. Up to five extra weekly flights will be added between AMS and Los Angeles and Toronto as well, but no further details were provided. Oct 12, 2006

Northwest Airlines Boeing 757s, which must be ETOPS certified for its news transatlantic services, will be fitted with winglets and will seat 160 passengers in two classes. The business class cabin will be reconfigured in a two-aisle-two alignment with 16 new seats, providing passengers with portable on-demand IFE, 1.5 m. of personal space, a computer port and other amenities. Coach will be configured in a three-aisle-three arrangement with 144 seats with 4 in. of additional pitch. Oct 12, 2006

Northwest Airlines flew 6.17 billion consolidated RPMs in September, a 5.5% decline from the year-ago month. Capacity fell 7.1% to 7.58 billion ASMs and load factor rose 1.3 points to 81.3%. Domestic RPMs dropped 3.3% to 3.17 billion as ASMs fell 4.4% to 4.03 billion, raising load factor 0.9 point to 78.6%. International traffic decreased 5.2% to 2.59 billion RPMs against a 7.2% decline in ASMs to 2.97 billion, sending load factor up 1.8 points to 87.2%. Oct 10, 2006

Northwest Airlines announced a tentative agreement with its striking mechanics, represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Assn., which will conduct a ratification vote during the next month. NWA said the deal offers one week of layoff pay per year of service up to five weeks, or up to 10 weeks of separation pay for those leaving the company. Employees accepting layoff would remain on furlough status for two years and may apply for open positions, NWA said. Last month the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that AMFA mechanics were eligible for unemployment benefits. Oct 9, 2006

Editor: Aram Gesar, eMail: [e-mail]

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Oct 9, 2006