"For some, Delta safety emerging as an issue"

Friday, September 16, 2005

For some, Delta safety emerging as an issue
By Peter J. Howe
The Boston (MA) Globe


At the gleaming new Logan International Airport terminal that Delta Air
Lines Inc. opened just six months before going bankrupt, passengers
yesterday were mostly confident they'll see no service disruptions.

But a few worried about safety -- and about how many smiles they'll be
getting from flight crews facing deep pay cuts and layoffs.

''We're not that concerned," said Ryan Hollenbeck, a vice president with
business software maker Witness Systems Inc. who was flying back to his
Roswell, Ga., office with a colleague from a Boston business trip. ''From
what we hear, everything will stay the same with the frequent-flyer program,
which is a big deal for us."

Margaret Thompson of Lynn said she anticipates Delta service ''is going to
get even more bare-bones, like Song or JetBlue, but that's the price that we
have to pay." Thompson, who was flying to Florida to visit her aunt, a
retired Delta flight attendant who began flying in the mid-1950s, said her
biggest worry is ''that they're going to cut her benefits and health
insurance."

Greg Brewer of Salem, toting his African gray parrot, Emerson, in a carry-on
box as he prepared to board for a business trip to South Carolina, said he
expects to keep flying on Delta without major disruptions.

''I just hope that it doesn't impact morale, like it did when Continental
went bankrupt in the 1990s and you'd get a load from the flight attendants
about how miserable the airline was," Brewer said.

For Mike Robidaux of Auburn, a tow-truck company owner flying to Atlanta to
drive back a new $80,000 flat-bed truck he bought on eBay.com, the morale of
flight mechanics ''is the main thing I was worried about."

''I was kind of nervous to fly with them because I'd heard about all this
financial stuff on the news," said Robidaux, who hadn't been on an airplane
since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. ''Are they cutting back on
maintenance and safety? That's the main thing I was worried about."


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