Airlines set seniority

Representatives for Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines mechanics have reached an agreement on an integrated seniority list, another step in Delta’s efforts to combine its work groups after this year’s merger.

The tentative agreement for mechanics and related employees would cover roughly 5,000 employees from Delta, who are nonunion, and about 1,000 from Northwest, who are represented by the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association.

The Northwest mechanics group is made up of a combination of dues-paying members of the AMFA union and hundreds of others who include replacement workers during AMFA’s 15-month strike against Northwest that ended in 2006.

AMFA represented the entire Northwest mechanics group in the seniority discussions, and the deal is subject to approval of Delta and AMFA members and leadership. The groups plan to meet the first week of January to sign the agreement.

If approved, the mechanics groups will be integrated based on length of service for technicians in certain job classifications and on company length of service for others.

For Delta mechanics, it means integrating with a smaller group, including some workers who are more junior than the Delta mechanics on the whole.

“I believe this is a very good agreement for all of our people,” wrote Delta’s president of technical operations, Tony Charaf.

At the same time, representatives of Delta’s nonunion meteorologists and Northwest’s meteorologists represented by the Northwest Airlines Meteorologists Association reached an agreement to combine their work groups. Delta has about a dozen meteorologists, while Northwest has about 20.

“We’re making excellent progress in quickly resolving the issues that are most important to our employees, notably seniority integration,” said Delta spokesman Kent Landers, who added that seniority integration agreements have been struck to cover about 20,000 employees of the combined Delta.

Pilots and flight dispatchers from Delta and Northwest have already reached agreements on seniority integration.

Two unions at Northwest —- the Association of Flight Attendants and International Association of Machinists —- have said they will not meet with representatives for nonunion flight attendants and ground workers at Delta on seniority integration until union representation elections have been held.