No Delta deal yet

ATLANTA -- Northwest Airlines Corp. pilots have integration issues to sort out. Not just the ones with their counterparts at Delta Air Lines Inc. that threaten to scuttle talks to combine the two carriers.

The ones with Republic Airlines. From 1986.

An arbitrator is still sorting out seniority questions from that deal, illustrating just how much the point matters. Employees at the top of the list get first choice on vacations, the best routes and the bigger planes that they get paid more for flying.

The boards of Delta and Northwest had been expected to vote Wednesday on a combination projected to be worth $20 billion if a pilot deal was in place. It was not clear if the boards met, though a person familiar with the negotiations said a merger deal would not be announced Thursday as had been hoped. That person said a deal now could be announced at the beginning of next week, presuming everything falls into place by then.

Delta and Northwest don't need a labor agreement between the pilots unions before announcing a combination, but having one in place could help speed up the integration of the companies down the line.

"I think they obviously recognize that with an unhappy pilots group, that could make the merger and integration process painful and expensive," said Dan Kasper, an airline consultant with LECG in Cambridge, Mass.

Pilots at US Airways and America West waited until after the 2005 announcement that the airlines would combine to try to hammer out a seniority and joint contract accord. Nearly three years later, no joint pilot contract has been reached.

People close to the Delta-Northwest talks said the pilots unions have agreed on a comprehensive joint contract but cannot agree on how seniority for the 12,000 pilots would work under a combined carrier.

Blending seniority lists is always a problem when airlines combine because different unions have different rules.

Pilots at Northwest still have unresolved issues 22 years after the carrier's combination with Republic Airlines.