Mesaba pilot strike deadline looms

With Mesaba Airlines pilots threatening to strike as early as Friday night, the impact on the Falls International Airport—and its passengers from both sides of the border—could be serious.
Mesaba, a carrier for Northwest Airlines, averages three flights a day out of the Falls in the winter months and seven a day during the summer. Some 20,000 passengers pass through the airport’s doors every year.
“An estimated 25 percent of that is Canadian traffic,” airport manager Thor Einarson said.
A pilots’ strike could have serious consequences both to passengers and the local economy.
“With three car rental agencies, the trickle-down effect will be huge,” Einarson said. “We’re hopeful they’ll come to an agreement before the deadline.”
That deadline is this Friday (Jan. 9) at 11:01 p.m. A vote taken in October showed 98 percent of the pilots were in favour of a strike action if the union and the airline were not able to come to an agreement by then.
“We reopened negotiations [Monday] in Minneapolis,” said Mesaba spokesperson Dave Jackson. “We plan on continuing them throughout the week and hope to reach an agreement by the deadline on Friday.”
The main dispute is over salaries. The Air Line Pilots Association—the union representing Mesaba Airlines pilots—says the pilots are paid as much as 30 percent less than pilots at comparable regional airlines.
The starting salary for a pilot at Mesaba Airlines is $17,352 ($22,241.85 Cdn.) a year. Nearly half of the airline’s pilots earn less than $32,500 ($41,662,48 Cdn.) a year.
Northwest Airlines, which schedules all Mesaba flights, said “the strike remains hypothetical.”
“Should a strike occur, we will have contingency plans that we will execute in order to accommodate our passengers in the best way possible,” said Mary Stanick of Northwest Airlines.
Stanick could give no details regarding what those plans would be, or whether service would continue in regions served exclusively by Mesaba Airlines.
In the event of a strike, the Falls International Airport will remain open “24 hours a day, seven days a week” for corporate and private aircraft, as well as freight arriving daily from UPS and FedEx, Einarson said.