Northwest Airlines said it had reached a tentative agreement with its flight attendants union. The new agreement achieves the required $195 million in annual cost savings the airline was seeking. The tentative deal was a long process in a rather cankerous labor relations fight with the attendants' union and rank-and-file membership. On July 6, the National Mediation Board announced that Northwest flight attendants voted to have the AFA-CWA replace the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA) as the flight attendants' bargaining organization. Now, the airline says flight attendants will vote on the latest tentative agreement on July 31. The flight attendants are the last major union needed to come to terms with the airline, which says the labor deals will help toward its goal of $2.5 billion in cost and efficiency improvements so the airline can ultimately restructure and exit bankruptcy.
