Petters Aviation to take over DLH hangar.

[Don Smith]

Right on Pete. This is why I ask the "Beancounter" how low the profit has to be before they kick out a good program? All of the things you cited were money makers. Shoring up the bottom line in maintenance overall costs. I have always realized that maintenance is not a profit center. That being said, the airline has chosen not to do smart things to make it a lower cost. I guess my biggest gripe in the whole thing is that these revenue streams employed a lot of people. Good men and women that loved what we did and loved working for nwa. THAT IS GONE. The work they were doing was paying their salaries and making money for the company. Steenland has his bare bones airline now. No assets, low morale and broken airplanes. People will get the message.

Don, to add to your comments...

Remember when NWA used to have a contract with the USPS to carry mail? It was very profitable for the company, but was discontinued...

In the early to mid '90s, we had a contract to overhaul North American Airlines 757s at MSP . I would imagine that was also a money maker for the airline, but that too was discontinued...

Both of those revenue streams were scrapped prior to our strike - and NWA declared bankruptcy soon after (it made it easier for them to justify the BK without having the extra money coming in).

I could see why they relinquished their 145 certificate - they just don't have the talent there (SCABS) to make it work...plus they probably didn't want to have any liability issues if it was proved that one of their overhauled components caused a crash with loss of life.