By Doug Cunningham

Northwest Airlines flight attendants face a bankruptcy court deadline next week that could void their contracts. The flight attendants on Thursday voted to leave their current union and go instead with representation by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

By Doug Cunningham

The Air Line Pilot's Association has not yet reached an agreement with Northwest Airlines, and a New York bankruptcy judge could weigh in soon with a decision on whether or not to approve Northwest's motion to throw out the union's contracts.

But Northwest has reached a tentative agreement with the Professional Flight Attendants Association, subject to a vote of the membership.
No details of the agreement were released, but the union says Northwest dropped a demand to outsource 30 percent of flight attendant jobs to Asia.

Northwest has been pressuring its unions for $1.1 billion in givebacks while in bankruptcy court. Talks are continuing with the pilots, who have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike that could kill Northwest if the bankruptcy judge throws out their contracts. Northwest wants $358 million in cuts from the pilots.

In Chapter 11 bankruptcy since last week, Northwest Airlines has announced plans to add 1400 flight attendants to the 400 pilots it's planning to lay off by January. The airline is also looking to outsource all flight attendant positions on international flights and planes with less than 100 seats to local, non-union flight attendants. The Professional Flight Attendants Association says the outsourcing proposal could cost the jobs of thousands of the airline's 9,800 flight attendants. Outsourcing has also cropped up as a central issue in the ongoing strike by the mechanics at Northwest.