By HARRY R. WEBER
AP Business Writer
5:10 PM CST, February 20, 2008
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.
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