Northwest strike cost state $323M

The strike also cost 510,000 other travelers extra time and money to complete their trips, it said.

"Shutting down two-thirds of the flights through Michigan hurts our state's economy, which relies heavily on trade with other states and nations," said Patrick Anderson, a Lansing economic consultant who led the study.

"We not only lose worker wages, we also lose the tourism and business productivity from all those travelers," he said.

Comerica Bank earlier estimated the loss at $350 million to metropolitan Detroit alone.

The airline's 6,150 pilots ratified a four-year contract Saturday after going on strike Aug. 29.

Northwest, which handles nearly 75 percent of the passenger traffic at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, scheduled 89 departures yesterday, starting with a Boeing 757 that took off for Las Vegas at 6:40 a.m. EDT.

Northwest planned to operate about 430 flights throughout its system yesterday, or about one-quarter of its normal schedule.

The airline hoped to resume operating all 1,700 of its daily flights Monday.

Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Memphis and Minneapolis-St. Paul are Northwest's hub airports.

At Flint's Bishop Airport, six arrivals and departures were scheduled for yesterday on Mesaba Airlines, which flies under the Northwest banner on turbo-prop planes between Flint and Detroit.

09-17-98