Northwest Cuts Back Domestic Flights
Northwest Airlines has decided to once again cut back on its domestic flight capacity. They beleive that this will help to lower the hours that pilots have to fly. They are hoping that with another cutback they can prevent a surge of in flight cancellations that had struck them at the end of June when they had to cancel more than 1.000 flights.
On Tuesday, Northwest canceled 43 flights, according to data on FlightStats.com. By early afternoon on Wednesday, the carrier had canceled 25 flights. By comparison, American Airlines canceled 15 flights on Tuesday, Delta canceled 13 flights and US Airways canceled 10. United Airlines, meanwhile, grounded 44 flights. Northwest Airlines Chief Executive Doug Steenland said in a letter to employees that domestic pilots will fly a maximum of 86 hours next month, compared with 88 or 90 hours in June.
As of Aug. 1, Steenland said all furloughed pilots who want to return to Northwest will have a date scheduled for retraining. “Our training facility for recalled pilots is operating at capacity,” he wrote. “The recall activity, coupled with the reduced schedule, has produced some of the highest numbers of reserve pilots in recent history.” Once all eligible pilots have been recalled, Steenland said Northwest will begin hiring new pilots.
Northwest also is changing the way trips are made to and from large cities on the East Coast to minimize impact of weather and air traffic congestion, he said. And the carrier is using spare widebody planes normally used for international flights to serve some domestic routes. The letter followed an increase in cancellations last weekend, when Northwest said 51 mainline flights were canceled on Saturday and another 58 on Sunday. Steenland said 36 of the cancellations were related to planes being pulled out of service for maintenance.