Nov. 5, 2004
By DAVE HIRSCHMAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Airport service workers will take the biggest hit as Delta Air Lines eliminates up to 10 percent of its work force in the next 18 months.
The Atlanta-based carrier detailed the previously announced job cuts Friday in conference calls and messages to its 72,000 workers. Delta plans to eliminate up to 6,900 jobs as it moves to slash $3 billion in annual expenses.
Up to 3,100 of the targeted jobs will be in airport services, such as agents and ramp workers. As many as 2,000 will be in Delta's technical operations division, which includes maintenance.
Delta had previously announced that up to 1,800 administrative jobs will be axed.
"We shared with our employees on Sept. 8 that we'd be laying off between 6,000 and 7,000," John Kennedy, a Delta spokesman, said Friday. He said the latest announcement keeps a promise to "pass along more detailed information as soon as it became available."
The biggest chunk of the cuts is likely to come in Dallas, where Delta will close a connecting hub and slash daily flights to 21 from 254 today.
Delta has about 4,000 Dallas workers now, and it expects its employment there to drop as low as 1,000 after the new schedule goes into effect on Feb. 1.
Many Dallas employees will be offered jobs within the company, but it's unclear how many will accept and move to other cities, Kennedy said.
The company's Atlanta headquarters and maintenance and airport operations also will be affected, but Delta hasn't given specific numbers by city.
Delta is offering early retirement and voluntary severance programs until Nov. 15.
Delta has said it will impose 10 percent pay cuts, benefit cuts and other cost-saving measures for more than 50,000 U.S. employees who remain beginning in January.
Delta has lost more than $6 billion since early 2001 and narrowly avoided a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last week when pilots agreed to steep wage cuts and creditors offered new financing contingent on Delta getting pilot concessions and meeting cost-cutting targets.
Delta's 7,300 pilots are voting on whether to ratify the tentative contract, which reduces wage rates 32.5 percent and cuts company costs by $1 billion annually. The ratification vote ends Thursday.
If ratified, pilot wage cuts begin in December.
On Friday, Northwest Airlines pilots overwhelmingly approved a contract that gives them a 15 percent annual pay cut for the next two years and allows the company's regional affiliates to carry more passengers.
Northwest's losses have not been as steep as Delta's, but, as at Delta, certain creditor agreements rode on the pilot deal.
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