NWA cuts spark Capitol backlash

03/18/2005

Conrad Defiebre and Mike Meyers, Star Tribune
March 18, 2005

Northwest Airlines’ plan to eliminate as many as 900 mechanics’ jobs in Minnesota has stiffened some legislative opposition to the airline’s proposed $862 million expansion of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, has scheduled a news conference with Northwest mechanics this morning at the State Capitol to announce what he described as a strengthening of his existing bill to slap a moratorium on the expansion.

“We’re going to raise objections to the job cuts,” he said Thursday. “The state needs a partner in [airport expansion] ventures, not a competitor, someone who will keep Minnesota jobs here instead of taking the money and running.”

Chaudhary earlier introduced legislation to delay official approval of the expansion until Northwest provided information about outsourcing mechanics’ jobs and related issues, including airline security from terrorism.

With Wednesday’s announcement of cuts to hundreds of high-paying jobs, however, Chaudhary said that bill wouldn’t go far enough. While he declined to provide details Thursday, he now is expected to seek an indefinite delay of the 15-year airport project, which Northwest has dubbed “20/20 Vision.”

Northwest said Thursday that its plan for capacity reductions and job cuts in 2005 will not affect its need for more gates at its main hub airport well into the future. The plan involves, in some cases, operating aircraft more hours per day, or more frequent flights with smaller planes.

“It does not change the need for gates or other facilities,” said Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch. Ebenhoch also cited a Federal Aviation Administration forecast released Thursday estimating that 1 billion people will board planes in 2015, an increase of 45 percent.

“The capacity reductions Northwest made were for 2005,” Ebenhoch said. The 20/20 Vision plan “addresses needs of the Twin Cities travel community well into the future,” he said.

Under the plan issued last fall, airlines other than Northwest and its alliance partners—KLM, Continental and Delta—would move from the Lindbergh terminal to the satellite Humphrey terminal by 2007. The Humphrey terminal would expand from 10 to 20 gates over a number of years.

Meanwhile, far more concrete would be poured at the main terminal for Northwest and its partner airlines. The terminal would expand from 117 gates to 153. (Northwest now leases 101 gates.) New check-in counters, corridors and luggage retrieval areas would consume about 60 percent of the airport expansion budget, Northwest executives have said.

A 400-room hotel would spring up next to the terminal.

“From the Northwest perspective, the recent announcement regarding domestic flying reductions will have no impact on the 20/20 plan,” Northwest spokesman Bill Mellon said Thursday night.

Northwest’s share of the cost would be $92 million, which the airline proposes to borrow from the Metropolitan Airports Commission, the agency that overseas operations at MSP.

The plan has the support of Gov. Tim Pawlenty but must go through a lengthy study and approval process before the MAC on what steps to take next on the proposal. Jeff Hamiel, executive director of the agency, which has final say on airport construction and management, was out of town Thursday and unavailable for comment on the status of the expansion plan.