editorials

Air passengers know all too well the sensation of being stuck on a tarmac, waiting for takeoff, only to hear the pilot announce that there's a long queue and an hour to go before wheels up.

The proposed Northwest-Delta merger is starting to feel like that.

Issues of pilot seniority are delaying the dealmaking, which is no surprise given the power of the union. "We can make [mergers] work, and we can destroy them,'' Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) President John Prater told the Star Tribune in December. Right now, it's difficult to predict which role the pilots will play.

Whether the merger is a wise move won't be apparent until terms of a deal are made available. There's a lot at stake for Northwest, its employees and Minnesota, and there's plenty of reason for anxiety about the unknown. What is clear now is that the 11,000 or so pilots could lose a lot if they allow internal conflicts to ground the deal.

With speculation about industry consolidation in the air late last year, ALPA leaders made clear that they wanted to be involved in any merger discussions from the beginning. Northwest CEO Doug Steenland and Delta CEO Richard Anderson could have rejected that idea and moved ahead, but they would have risked the kind of messy after-the-fact labor battles that have plagued other airline deals, including Northwest's contentious acquisition of Republic Airlines in 1986 and the US Airways-America West merger in 2005.

An arbitrator eventually integrated the seniority lists for Northwest and Republic, and the bitterness from that process lingered for decades. Anderson, a former Northwest CEO who's well aware of that history, wants to avoid that kind of turmoil, which would also make it harder to win regulatory approval for a merger.

Anderson and Steenland involved the pilots in negotiations in the earliest stages. According to a Star Tribune news story, the proposal on the table calls for Northwest's 4,500 pilots to receive 30 percent-plus pay increases over four years. Delta's 6,000 pilots would receive smaller increases because they are paid more now, but there's a total of $2 billion in additional compensation at stake for the two pilot groups.

The combined seniority list, which determines which planes a pilot flies as well as individual compensation, is the sticking point. Those pilots who would lose seniority would be unhappy happy, and it remains to be seen if ALPA leaders will be able to reach a compromise that would be approved by the rank-and-file.

The merger clock is ticking, and Anderson and Steenland won't wait forever. ALPA leaders no doubt realize that the forces driving consolidation in the industry, including high fuel prices and excess capacity, are not likely to change soon.

If this merger dies, other merger partners are likely to surface for Northwest and Delta, and the terms pilots will be dealing with could be very different. We'll soon know if that's a risk they're willing to take.