Where Northwest Airlines flexed raw muscle with its feeders, Delta Air Lines has exercised a less robust approach.
It has told Skywest Airlines that it will honour its contract with the Utah-based regional, the owner of its Atlantic Southeast Airlines feeder since the summer. In addition, Delta has moved to trim, but not too deeply, at Comair, the Delta Connection that it did not sell.
At Comair, the first US regional to exploit the regional jet in a large-scale strategic way, Delta plans to cut pay, end up to 1,000 jobs, and remove up to 30 Bombardier regional jets in the 40- to 50-seat class, or 17% of Comair capacity, including 11 jets by December. The target is to reduce costs by up to $70 million.
Comair’s 27-strong fleet of 70-seat regional jets are untouched for now. The shape of the cuts suggests that Delta either does not want to or cannot sell Comair.
About 350 of the Comair job losses have already been announced. The pay cuts for pilots total $17.3 million, for flight attendants $8.9 million and for mechanics $1 million. Flight attendants are already working under a new-hire scale. Comair said it will seek to save $5.2 million by cutting pay to non-union workers.
Its pilots, who operate under a separate contract from that of Delta’s mainline pilots, are already under a pay freeze that began in June this year. Because Comair was included in Delta’s bankruptcy filing, the parent company could force Comair’s 7,200 workers to accept lower rates and more flexible work rules.
Source: Airline Business
