Today, as Delta announced its international expansion, Northwest announced its first major expansion since bankruptcy. Since the two carriers declared bankruptcy at the same time, Northwest seems to like to announce things the same day Delta does.
Delta has had an aggressive international expansion plan since bankruptcy. Northwest, however, has engaged in very little in the way of major changes, choosing to reorganize internally over service alterations. This has included its tough union negotiations, contract voidings, and the establishing of a regional subsidiary, Compass Airlines. Since filing for bankruptcy, Northwest has actually shrunk by ten percent.
Today, Northwest announced service from Detroit to Dusseldorf and Brussels, as well as the first non-stop transatlantic service from Hartford, Connecticut to KLM’s hub in Amsterdam. It will also increase its Boston-Amsterdam service to twice daily, as well as increasing the Detroit to Amsterdam frequencies. Northwest will operate this increase with Boeing 757s with 160 seats. They have asked the bankruptcy court for permission to spend six million dollars each for ten planes to refit them. The refit will include new seat cushions and as much as four additional inches of space in economy. In business, new seats, digital inflight entertainment, and laptop power ports will complete the retrofit.
Industry experts say that it indicates Northwest is nearly complete with its bankruptcy reorganization. Northwest CEO Doug Steenland also noted he hopes to have an agreement with the Northwest flight attendant union soon. Negotiations resume next week.