Members of Northwest Airline's Aircraft Mechanics union have issued a no confidence vote in the carrier's executive team.

Members of the working for Northwest Airlines received a letter Monday from Ted Ludwig, president of AMFA Local 33, stating that the union has approved a no confidence vote in the carrier's executive team.

Members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association Local 33, which is based in Bloomington, received a letter calling for the vote from Ted Ludwig, local president.

The letter said that the union's local leadership was concerned by "the progressive degradation of operations at NWA." The letter also said it was concerned about the carrier "expecting their employees to continue to do more with less," which it claims hurts employee morale.

The letter also said that, "The flight cancellations that recently caused NWA's stock to drop are certainly being caused by the shortage of pilots, but another contributing factor is the highly stressed maintenance department."

A spokesman for Northwest said the carrier had no immediate comment.

On Friday the company issued a statement explaining a recent slew of flight cancellations this week, citing bad weather and pilot absenteeism. More than 130 flights between June 22 and 28 were cancelled.

The carrier said that while East Coast thunderstorms caused some disruption in flights, most of the problem stemmed from too many pilots having already flown their limit of 90 hours a month.

Northwest also said that pilot absenteeism is up 80 percent compared to the same week last year.

The carrier's stock was down slightly on mid-day trading on the New York Stock Exchange Monday. It was trading at $22.05 after opening at $22.21.

Source: bizjournals.com