Planning Ahead

Although we are all dealing with the joys of winter, part of our team is well into the spring and summer planning process. As we look ahead there is some very good news on the scheduling side of the business. Our DTW WorldGateway is going back into the growth mode with additional flights over last year and new international services. This May we will be operating 285 NW mainline flights and 215 Airlink departures, which is up year over year. Also, we will start flying DTW–DUS and DTW–BRU with our 757s and adding another DTW–FRA flight this summer.

We are evaluating our Northwest staffing requirements, but the good news is for the first time in a very long time we could be hiring CSA's. Not sure yet how many CSAs have transfers into DTW, but the numbers look like we will be adding 45 to 50 part time CSA's to current levels.

I know CSA's have formed a bid committee to assist Andy in building a great spring/summer bid that meets the needs of our customers and being more bid friendly for employees than we have seen in the past.

The ESE spring/summer plan is a little more complicated with the pull down of our deice operation. Joe Conlon and Hussein Berry are working on several options to smooth the transitions and I know once we have a clear picture, Joe will communicate the plan.

On another topic, I want to personally thank everyone in LSO for working endless hours in order to expedite getting our customers and their luggage reunited this past week. This last storm really drove a large volume of rerouting customers and their luggage. Our LSO team is still working 24 hours a day as a result, again Thank You.

Well that’s all for now,

Mark