Northwest flight attendants consider possible CHAOS

Head’s up. This may affect your travel plans. If Northwest voids the contract covering its flight attendants, and does so without a consensual agreement, the airline's cabin crewmembers could cause CHAOS (Create Havoc Around Our System) across NWA’s wide-ranging route network.

Northwest has received Bankruptcy Court permission to impose new contractual terms on its 9,300 flight attendants if the two sides don’t reach some kind of accord by Monday, July 17.

CHAOS could be mild or wild. It could be as low-key as distributing leaflets at airports, or as discordant as walking off the job on select flights.

The former wouldn’t hurt the airline, the latter could conceivably cripple it, causing frazzled fliers to book away. A spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants, the union representing Northwest’s cabin crewmembers, says CHAOS would be brought into play only as a last resort.

Northwest has already survived one major work action. Last year union mechanics, of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, walked off the job at NWA.

They were replaced.

© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler