For those of you interested in our recent story about outsourcing at Northwest Airlines, here is a copy of the booklet that Northwest Airlines supplied to its soon to be outsourced ground workers. Here you will find some interesting commentary on the subject.
In further followup news, the Memphis Business Journal reports here that as per a move agreed with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Northwest Airlines will be outsourcing its ground operations in sixty-eight airports.
Ground outsourcing is a common way of cost-savings nowadays. Often it is used when an airline’s service to an airport is infrequent enough to not justify hiring of its own staff, ie service a few times a day from an airport. Thus several airlines can all hire out the same ground crew to service them.
In this case, Northwest will be outsourcing at any airport with 40 flights a day or fewer. We imagine that the fact their union approved the concession is little comfort to those losing their jobs.
For the consumer, it is yet another step on the road back to profitability by Northwest.