Northwest, United join list of airlines cutting jobs, flights

MINNEAPOLIS -- Northwest Airlines and United Airlines have joined the list of hard-hit carriers planning to lay off workers and trim flights as they grapple with the poor economy and the war in Iraq.

Northwest announced plans Friday to cut 4,900 jobs and reduce its flight schedule by 12 percent. United Airlines said it will trim its schedule by about 8 percent and lay off an undetermined number of workers.

Earlier this week, Continental Airlines said it will cut its work force by about 1,200 people by the end of the year to save $500 million. More layoffs are planned if war with Iraq is prolonged and air travel remains soft.

American Airlines, the world's No. 1 carrier, said Thursday it will cut international flights by 6 percent in April to meet a downturn in travel bookings due to the war in Iraq and could make additional reductions if traffic remains slow.

Northwest, which also plans to idle 20 planes, has already had laid off about 12,000 employees due to the slump in the airline industry.

Passenger traffic down

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, major airlines have laid off roughly 100,000 employees and industrywide capacity is down about 14 percent from where it was two years ago. But passenger traffic and ticket prices have also fallen sharply, resulting in bankruptcy filings by US Airways and United Airlines and industrywide losses of $9 billion in 2002.

Hawaiian Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to "restore the company's long-term financial health," the airline announced Friday.

The U.S.-led war on Iraq did not trigger the decision to file, but will "likely worsen conditions," for the airline industry, the company said. No new layoffs of Hawaiian's 3,311 employees were planned.

Hawaiian Airlines, a subsidiary of Hawaiian Holdings Inc., said flight and services will continue without interruption. The parent company was not included in the filing.

United, the world's second-largest airline, said it will eliminate 104 U.S. flights as of April 1 and 20 international flights effective April 6. It said it would reduce service to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Tokyo, Paris, Taipei and Brussels.

The Chicago-based airline, which currently operates about 1,700 daily flights, will reduce that number to 1,574, not counting the 1,478 operated by its regional partners as United Express flights.

While the company said it had not yet made final the number of employees being put on temporary leave, its unions disclosed a day earlier that 2,300 flight attendants and 1,100 Indianapolis-based mechanics would be among those laid off.

"We saw a drop in future bookings as a result of the threat of war, and we expect this to continue with the onset of war itself," said Greg Taylor, a United senior vice president.

United, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Dec. 9, lost a record $3.2 billion last year and has pegged its operating loss for the first three months of 2003 at about $870 million.

"We are at a point where we must curtail or delay all work not critical to the company's safe operation or successful emergence from bankruptcy," said senior vice president Sara Fields.

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