Delta Finds Seniority Issue Expensive

The airline company Delta Air Lines might possibly be in a very costly position of hiring new employees which it would not really need and end up spending so much cash which the company wants to preserve if ever there are additional problems with the already uncertain economy. But this is also because there are two work groups which have not yet been able to resolve the seniority issues that have resulted from combining two companies of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines and thus turning them into the biggest airline operator in the world.

Issues about Seniority

The seniority of an employee will determine his schedule, vacation leaves, work rules and also the way they can bid for flights. Their pilots have merged the seniority list as well as the joint contract. However, flight attendants and the ground workers like the baggage handlers and the reservation agents do not. Last April, the company Delta Air Lines had begun flying their planes out into the Northwest markets and back again. Such a cross-fleeting is all about making use of the aircraft with the right size on any specific routes that are also based on demands in that market. Delta has also said that any of their key benefits based on their acquisition of the company Northwest is also about the flexibility of each other to use the carrier to the other one’s route.

Then again, the flight attendants from each carrier shall not be allowed to work on the other’s plane since there are outstanding issues with regard to seniority and representation. One example would be that a new flight that is international on a Delta aircraft shall require flight attendants who do know how to speak a certain language. Should the attendants of Delta find themselves unavailable, then the airline will probably need to hire people who also have that capability even if the pre-merger Northwest air lines do have flight attendants who already speak the language that they need. And of course, Delta will not want to switch to an aircraft of Northwest because such might be an inefficient thing to do.

Wage Data and Cost Estimates

At the moment, Delta cannot estimate their costs and even the experts say they cannot speculate on the wage data of the airline as well as the number of the employees which they need to hire out.  The passengers themselves may also not notice this right away, but then again there will be eventual friction coming from the workers which might affect their morale and might possible hurt the quality of customer service. Should there be a battle over seniority at the company, then there should be some measures and workarounds they need to take in order to have those things completed in the soonest possible time.