NEW YORK (AP) -- Northwest Airlines Corp. will likely reach a new and lower-cost labor contract with its pilots this fall, the airline's president, Doug Steenland, said Tuesday.þþDuring a presentation to analysts, Steenland said Northwest's pilot costs are the second-highest in the industry, behind Delta Air Lines Inc. Northwest has $1 billion in debt coming due in 2005 and the airline wants to refinance that debt, he said.þþ``The pilots have concluded it's appropriate and necessary and in their best interest to participate in labor cost restructuring,'' he said.þþThis spring, the pilots union offered a cost-cutting proposal worth $200 million a year, with Northwest's 5,500 pilots seeking company stock in return. But Steenland said the $200 million was inadequate.þþMeanwhile, Duane Woerth, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis recently that he believes Northwest and Delta will reach cost-cutting pacts this year with their pilots unions.þþEagan, Minn.-based Northwest has amassed huge losses, including more than $2 billion on its operations over the past three years. Atlanta-based Delta, the nation's third-largest airline, is staggering under a heavy debt burden and caught in ``a rapidly worsening situation,'' Woerth said.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
