Maybe it was the fluorescent lights and the windowless rooms at the National Mediation Board offices in Washington that kept anyone from sleeping.

        Or maybe it was the standard office chairs that aren't particularly conducive to sitting for nearly two days that kept Comair and pilots union officials attentive and working through a 36-hour marathon that resulted in the deal.

MORE COVERAGE

Number of sources applied pressure • Comair pilots end strike • Hotels, businesses, travelers welcome end of strike • Comair pilots strike at a glance

        Or more likely, it was the ghosts of those outside the room who had applied the strongest doses of political, economic and social pressure on the strike that finally got the airline and its striking pilots to agree.

        That pressure included:

        • Intervention from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta — perhaps the only person who had enough credibility with both sides to keep the situation from becoming parochial and partisan.

        • An enormously disastrous first half of the year financially for parent Delta Air Lines.

        • Pilots at other regional airlines basically telling Comair's union that while they shouldn't give in if they weren't comfortable with the deal, they had done enough and not to be martyrs.

        Or maybe it was all of the above, with something else mixed in.

        “We like to think that it's magic, and it's the magic that only comes in the middle of the night,” said mediation board member Magdalena Jacobsen. “For both sides, it was just time to do the deal, and sometimes you can't explain it.”        

"No' vote a key

CONTRACT TERMS

Work rules: Minimum 11 days off a month in one year; 12 days off a month in two years; 14 hour, 30 minute maximum duty day during daylight hours, with maximum scheduled day at 13 hours, 30 minutes.     Retirement: New pension plan with company contributing between 2 and 10 percent of salary (depending upon seniority) each year, to be paid upon retirement. Company contribution to 401(k) changed.     Pay: A first-year pilot would earn nearly $21,000 annually. A senior regional jet captain would make about $85,000 a year. New rates for 70-seat aircraft in contract call for 10 to 15 percent higher pay. Duty and trip rigs, and minimum duty pay, also added to contract.     Retroactive pay (difference between new pay rates and old pay rates): 5 percent of annual earnings for between June 1998 and June 2000, and 7.5 percent of earnings between June 2000 and June 2001. To be payable in two installments before year's end.

        Officials from the company and the union would not comment for this story.

        But according to others who were involved at some point of the talks, a big first step in getting the two sides back together was the pilots' May 12 overwhelming rejection of a proposal submitted by Ms. Jacobsen, who had presided over all contract talks since late last fall.

        Many Tristaters immediately feared what could happen if the strike went on much longer. Fred Reid, president and chief operating officer for Comair's parent company, Delta Air Lines, hammered that point home during a visit to Cincinnati as the pilots were voting on the deal.

        “That visit and the vote was like a wake-up call to everyone.” said Eric Summe, Delta's Cincinnati-based director of governmental and public affairs for the central region.        

Top guns take aim

        That began a slew of phone calls, letters, e-mails and faxes, with U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, a Terrace Park Republican, one of those involved although Comair is based in Northern Kentucky.

        “This was about more than just Comair, it was about the economic impact the entire airport has on the region,” Mr. Portman said.

        The day after the May 12 vote, Mr. Portman made a round of phone calls, one of them particularly crucial.

        Mr. Portman had served as assistant for legislative affairs in the first Bush White House, and his counterpart for Cabinet affairs in that administration was Michael Jackson, now deputy secretary of transportation.

        “When Michael began to get engaged, things started to happen,” Mr. Portman said.

        Eventually, as more and more officials from the local Chamber of Commerce level all the way up to Ohio Gov. Bob Taft weighed in with the Transportation Department, and Mr. Jackson applying internal pressure, Mr. Mineta decided to get involved.

        And he was the perfect man for the job. The only Democrat in President Bush's Cabinet, Mr. Mineta formerly served as chairman of the House's aviation subcommittee. Two of his sons are commercial pilots. And he was a board member of Northwestern University's Transportation Center before resigning to take his current post.

        Many credit him with keeping the situation from disintegrating into Republicans saying the pilots had to give in and Democrats taking an anti-management stance.

        “I heard from all political parties, from all the business interests and those in the pilot community and they all said "Let's get this thing settled,'” Mr. Mineta said. “And my job was not to be a negotiator or say who was right or who was wrong. It was to get them to go back to the table.”

        So Mr. Mineta summoned the two sides to Washington. Mr. Mineta first held a 90-minute meeting with local union chairman J.C. Lawson III and other labor leaders — including the national president of the Air Line Pilots Association, Duane Woerth. Then the pilots and management — including Comair president Randy Rademacher — met.

        His message to both sides: “Look, don't go back in there and drag this thing out and out and out. Sit down earnestly and crank out an agreement. If you go back to the table just to say yes to me ... you're just wasting time.”

        As they emerged from Mr. Mineta's office, both sides pledged to resume negotiations the following Tuesday.        

The mounting toll

        Meanwhile, Delta announced its first quarterly loss in nearly six years, saying its losses from the Comair strike had a lot to do with it.

        Although it was bleeding money, Comair already had laid off 2,400 employees, including 1,600 local workers.

        And there was pressure, financial and otherwise, on the pilots.

        Ms. Jacobsen said many saw the strike as “a crusade to raise the bar for the entire industry.”

        But in early June, Ms. Jacobsen said many within ALPA's national office and even pilots at other airlines were telling Comair's pilots that they had done enough.

        “The other pilots began weighing in saying that "we appreciate your efforts, but that we think this is the time'” to settle, she said. “Those pilots did not want to see Comair go out of business, because that just damaged the future cause.”        

The endgame

        When the sides met with the mediation board for what would be the last time in a three-year process, something was clearly different.

        “You could sense they were serious about getting an agreement,” said Patricia Sims, senior mediator for the mediation board and the staffer who was involved with Comair's negotiations for the past 1 1/4 years.

        There was not one particular breakthrough, just a continuous give-and-take that some union officials have previously said were the first constructive negotiations in nearly a year. It resulted in a 36-hour marathon during which no one slept and participants barely even stopped to eat.

        “Once you build that momentum, you just don't want to stop,” Ms. Sims said. “And you really can lose track of time here, since there are no windows.”

        And then about noon on June 14, Mr. Lawson told Comair's vice president for labor relations, Walter Darr, and other company officials that if they made one further concession, he and the negotiating committee would guarantee that the Master Executive Council would endorse the deal — thereby creating a tentative agreement.

        “At that point, Randy (Rademacher) said "Yes, we want their endorsement,' and the company decided to spend more money,” said Ms. Jacobsen, who battled a sinus infection and ruptured eardrum throughout the three-day negotiations. “Then he came back in, he and J.C. shook hands, and everyone applauded.”

        The four-man executive council was summoned to mediation board offices, and after three hours of waiting, Mr. Lawson exited at 4:21 p.m. to announce the deal — beginning another round of hugs, smiles and high-fives.

        “In the end, everyone felt good about themselves, and there was a lot of relief,” Ms. Jacobsen said. “Hopefully, they can build on that to rebuild the relationship now.”