Bankruptcy judge Gregory Kishel is giving Mesaba Airlines and its unions at least one more week to reach a contract settlement.

Kishel on Thursday delayed until May 18 a hearing into whether he will "abrogate" union contracts. That would let Mesaba impose whatever cuts in jobs, wages, benefits and working conditions the airline wants.

Mesaba and the Air Line Pilots Association will meet again Tuesday through Thursday. The pilots, who are taking the lead in negotiations among Mesaba?s unions, had three days of mediated sessions this week, plus additional subcommittee meetings, said Capt. Jonathan Marut, secretary-treasurer for ALPA?s Master Executive Council at Mesaba.

Talks are progressing in the sense that "we are now doing groundwork that should have been done a long time ago," Marut said.

Buying time
Without consensual agreements in place, Kishel could give Mesaba permission to nullify its union contracts and impose conditions. If Mesaba imposes, its unions say, they are prepared to launch a coordinated strike that they say will cripple the airline.

It's unlikely a settlement will come next week, Marut said, "but I don't think any bankruptcy judge wants to make that decision either way. As long as both sides are asking for more time, they'd much rather that we reach a consensual agreement."

"It's imperative that Mesaba moves forward, but it's imperative that we all move forward together," said Capt. Tom Wychor, chair of the MEC at Mesaba, Mesaba, like Northwest and other airlines, claims unions cannot strike while the airline is in bankruptcy. ALPA and other unions disagree.

"If they violate the status quo, we have the ability to strike," Wychor said. "At some point, we have to have the right to use the tools available to us.

"We can't strike until the airline imposes," he said. But if Mesaba does impose conditions, "we intend to withhold our services in a mass strike."

High-tech strike center
To emphasize that point, the pilots and mechanics have strike centers up and running.

The pilots' center is far more high tech than a typical union strike headquarters. Yes, there are phone banks, pizza and picket signs, including one that reads: "What does Paul Foley do?" That's a reference to the president and CEO of MAIR Holdings, the parent company of Mesaba that unions say has siphoned off as much as $120 million in profits from Mesaba ? money that could have prevented the bankruptcy.

But the pilots' strike headquarters ? on the 9th floor of an office building south of the airport ? includes a corner office with two walls of windows overlooking an airport runway. Portable radios crackle with communications on air traffic control frequencies. Video cameras are available to film landings.

But what really catches the eye are two banks of computers, loaded with software remarkably similar to what air traffic controllers use. On these screens, volunteers and staff track flights in and out of Mesaba's main hubs: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit and Memphis. They pay particular attention not only to Mesaba flights, but also to Northwest flights and flights by Northwest's other regional carrier: Pinnacle.

"We can find any plane in the country," said Mike Dockman, strike committee chairman for the pilots union at Mesaba. "We need to monitor flights in case someone's taking our flying. We need to know who's flying each aircraft."

Northwest, Mesaba and Pinnacle serve about 60 percent of the same cities, meaning "we're each capable of replacing the other," Wychor said. "We need to show the company that we have the capability of knowing where our planes are, that we can protect our flying."

Working out the logistics
The nature of air travel makes the pilots' more sophisticated operation necessary, Wychor said. "We don't have a central plant. We have pilots all over the country." Mesaba flies to more than 30 states and several provinces in Canada.

Pilot strike operations have evolved from the days when members kept paper logs of planes flying in an out of an airport. Sometimes spotters, dressed in camouflage with high-power binoculars, camped in fields and woods near airports. Some of that still goes on, Wychor said, but ALPA is now able to do most of its monitoring remotely.

Tracking flights is only part of the logistical challenge facing the union. "We have to know where every pilot is at the moment we call a strike," Wychor said. "We have to be able to reach people on the ramp, tell them to walk away from their airplane, and have a way to get them and their crew home."

Preparations include a pocket manual that guides pilots on how to proceed in a variety of situations. The national union has dedicated as much as $2 million from its contingency fund to support strike center operations, he said.

Working together
The strike center opened May 1 to begin training volunteers and to develop a track record on what typical operations for Northwest carriers look like. "We're listening, but we're not fully engaged yet," Wychor said.

If the bankruptcy court nullifies the contract, that will change. "We'll go live then," Wychor said.

A strike may not happen immediately, he said; timing will take into account what makes best sense strategically, including coordinating actions with the flight attendants and mechanics unions.

Flight attendants have threatened to unleash CHAOS ? their trademarked term for targeted disruptions of an airline?s operations, which they call "Creating Havoc Around Our System."

Mesaba workers now have compensation packages that are roughly average for the airline industry, but Mesaba's proposal would make them the industry's lowest-paid workers, Wychor said. "We need a contract that's in line with our peers, not one that's undermining the industry.

"The key point is, absent a consensual agreement, the airline will fail," Wychor said. "And that consensual agreement has to be acceptable to members."

Concessions drive workers out
Although Mesaba wants concessions totaling 19.4 percent from its union employees, individual workers will take far bigger hits, Wychor said. First-year pilots, after paying additional health-care costs, will take home less than $14,000 a year, he said. Some senior pilots, because of pay cuts and changes in job assignments under Mesaba?s plans, would take pay cuts of up to 60 percent, Wychor said.

Those numbers already are driving workers away. Attrition has more than doubled among pilots, Wychor said. Since September, 51 pilots have left, he said; in the previous six months, only 19 left.

Even without a strike, Wychor said, resignations could cripple the airline. "Maintaining a schedule would be impossible."

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association says 13 percent of Mesaba's mechanics have quit since September, when the airline filed for bankruptcy protection.

Michael Kuchta edits the Union Advocate, the official publication of the St. Paul Trades & Labor Assembly. E-mail him at advocate@stpaulunions.org