Northwest Airlines reached a new tentative agreement on wage and benefit reductions with its flight attendants yesterday, striking an accord on $195 million in annual cuts that averts a potential work action and seemingly paves the way for the carrier's eventual emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.Northwest had been granted permission by a US bankruptcy judge to impose a new contract on the flight attendants as of today (ATWOnline, July 3), a move the cabin workers said would lead to a strike. But "around the clock negotiations" with the Assn. of Flight Attendants-CWA, which replaced the Professional Flight Attendants Assn. as the Northwest cabin crews' bargaining representative earlier this month (ATWOnline, July 7), achieved the "required" savings, said Northwest President and CEO Doug Steenland.

Northwest already has reached cost-cutting deals with its other unions, though those are contingent on the flight attendants also agreeing to terms. The flight attendants now will vote on whether to ratify the new agreement, with balloting expected to be completed by July 31. NWA reached a tentative agreement in March with its flight attendants on a contract providing $195 million in annual concessions but that deal was rejected overwhelmingly in a ratification vote last month (ATWOnline, June 7). No details of the new accord were released other than the $195 million in annual savings and it is unclear how it differs from the previously rejected deal.

"With the airline in bankruptcy, this deal was always going to be about survival," Mollie Reiley, interim president of the Northwest flight attendants MEC, said in a statement. "We left no stone unturned and have made a significant difference together, but this is not a day that we celebrate. We have an agreement that will give flight attendants hope for the future and one that allows us to fight another day." She added that the new agreement "addressed the areas that caused the greatest concern" and led to the voting down of the previous accord, saying the deal is "one that we can live with today and build upon in future better times at Northwest Airlines."