BANGOR – The future of Comair at Bangor International Airport remains up in the air after the airline’s pilots rejected a proposed contract over the weekend and subsequently continued to keep the Delta Connection grounded.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” said a Comair employee at the ticket counter at BIA. “We’re waiting to hear.”

After three days of voting, Comair pilots voted down a proposal that would have ended the walkout they began March 26. The vote was 1,042 to 99, the Air Line Pilots Association announced late Saturday. “That’s not good news,” said BIA acting director Rebecca Hupp on Sunday. “We will continue to have a challenge with the Comair strike, especially because it is one of our major carriers.”

Hupp said she talked with Delta and Comair officials late last week. They could not give her any indication as to what will happen next, she said Sunday.

Comair said no new talks are scheduled, and the National Mediation Board has said it will be at least 30 days before new talks can be held.

Up to March 26, Comair flew three trips to and from Bangor from the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. Last summer, it flew four round-trip flights. Because of the continuing strike, flights are canceled through June 10, and more cancellations are expected.

The airline and its parent company, Delta Air Lines, last week said the vote was critical to the future of both companies.

“They are making a statement about the future direction of Comair and their own careers,” said Frederick W. Reid, president and chief executive officer of Delta, while in Cincinnati on Thursday. His statement was posted on Delta’s Web site and not updated after the completion of the strike vote.

Comair, in the meantime, posted a statement on its Web site Saturday, and it, too, was not updated by Sunday evening.

“The no vote by Comair pilots means that the company will consider more steps to further reduce its operation and preserve capital in order to shore up the airline for a more prolonged strike,” said Randy Rademacher, president of Comair, in the statement.

To Comair’s nonpilot employees, Rademacher said, “I deeply regret the significant impact this vote will have on them.”

Seven of the 20 Comair employees at BIA already have been laid off in the last couple of weeks. It is not known if there will be another round of layoffs or if Comair operations at regional airports such as Bangor’s will be discontinued.

“I’ve survived the first one,” said one unidentified Comair employee at BIA on Sunday. “I probably won’t survive the second one. A lot of us won’t.”

But the airline hasn’t told them what will happen next, he said, and there was no elaboration in the statements of both Comair and its parent Delta. Spokespeople for Comair did not make themselves available for questions from the media on Sunday. Instead, a telephone recording suggested that the media read the statement on the Web.

“At this point we don’t know what’s going to happen with Comair,” said Delta spokesman Russell Cason on Sunday. “There are always contingency plans. There’s just no specifics to talk about.”

What’s next?

On Thursday, Delta president Reid gave hints about what could happen if the pilots rejected the proposed contract.

“Tremendous growth opportunities exist in regional jet markets across the nation,” Reid said. “We would look for other markets to deploy these aircraft, or consider making them available to the many other operators currently standing in line to serve the flying public.”

Delta has received offers for 60 of Comair’s aircraft, he said.

But what does Reid’s statement mean for Bangor International Airport, which became classified as a regional jet market in 1999 when Delta stopped flying its 160-person jet here?

In September 1999, BIA officials and Maine’s congressional delegation had extensive talks with Atlantic Coast airlines, which, like Comair, is a Delta Connection. Atlantic Coast markets itself as ACJets, and uses some of its regional jets under the name United Express or Delta Connection.

A regional jet company that serves as a Delta Connection uses regional jets that carry between 30 and 50 people and flies them from smaller markets to major cities, which are called hubs. There, passengers either transfer to other regional jets or make a connecting flight on Delta planes.

All of the Mainers involved in the talks with Atlantic Coast in 1999 were assured that Bangor was on the airline’s list of service areas.

In 1999, however, Atlantic Coast was its own company, said spokesman Rick DeLisi. Now it is a subsidiary of Delta.

DeLisi on Thursday said if the Comair pilots were to reject the proposed contract, as they did Saturday, then the company would be “making individual decisions” about what to do next. Options include Delta increasing Atlantic Coast’s level of service into new cities.

“It does represent a different scenario for our business plan,” DeLisi said, noting it was too early to say whether that would include Bangor.

Delta’s president, at Thursday’s news conference, said Delta was introducing ACJet service to Cincinnati. One flight would be round-trip from Cincinnati to Burlington, Vt.

“How ACJet is going to be figured in [to Delta’s plans], we don’t know,” said Delta spokesman Cason. “Other markets will come into play if [the strike] continues.”

Also, Delta announced earlier last week that it added a new partnership with American Eagle as a Delta Connection. American Eagle and USAir are the largest carriers out of BIA.

Cason on Sunday said that partnership serves California.

With the approach of tourist season, USAir will be adding two flights at BIA, interim director Hupp said Sunday.

“I don’t know what American’s [American Eagle] plans are,” she said.

What the pilots want

After eight unsuccessful days of negotiations between Comair and the pilots, the National Mediation Board crafted the settlement proposal that was rejected over the weekend.

The union’s leaders said the proposal was unsatisfactory, but decided to let the pilots decide if they like it. The union, though, did send the pilots a letter saying the proposal was an improvement over the company’s offer, and cautioned the pilots of the ramifications if the proposal was rejected, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Saturday.

The rejected proposal would have made Comair pilots the best-paid in the regional airline industry, management said.

But union leaders said the proposal fell short of pilots’ goals for salary, longer rest breaks, pay for all on-duty hours – not just hours spent flying – and a company-paid retirement program. They said the pilots deserved to be paid what their counterparts make at larger airlines because their duties are the same. Comair management said it cannot afford those salaries because the airline’s 50-seat jets don’t have the revenue-generating capacity of jets operated by larger carriers.

Delta officials said the strike has cost the airline $4 million a day in lost revenue. It has cut 200 pilot positions, and laid off 2,000 of its 4,000 nonstriking employees on Sunday.

At BIA on Sunday, Peter Ilica, an engineer from Portland, Ore., said he spent two hours trying to rearrange his flight schedule because of the strike, “which is not nice.” He was about to board an American Eagle plane.

He disagrees with the Comair pilots’ request to make the same amount of money as those at larger airlines.

“I don’t think they deserve the same kind of money when they fly smaller planes,” Ilica said.

Passenger numbers

Despite the strike by Comair’s pilots, passenger numbers were up five percent out of BIA compared with the same month last year, Hupp said Sunday.

The strike forced a lot of passengers out of the market, she said, but it didn’t stop others from booking flights on American Eagle or USAir.

Comair, even on Sunday, was reissuing tickets to passengers who had bought their tickets prior to the strike. Throughout the last few weeks, many were put on American Eagle or USAir flights, but some chose to drive to Portland and Boston to catch a Delta flight, Hupp said.

That didn’t affect the overall passenger numbers from BIA, she said.

“Had the strike not occurred, they [passenger numbers] would have been up 20 percent,” Hupp said.

Strike disruptions

Area travel agents aren’t taking any chances that the Comair strike will end anytime soon. Instead they are booking passengers on USAir or American Eagle for flights in the next couple of months regardless if Comair and its pilots settle.

But passengers who did not use a travel agent and have a reissued ticket from Comair are finding that they are being bumped from the plane of the new airline, said Cindy Hardy, owner of Bangor Travel Service, prior to the strike vote. Travelers with a reissued ticket need to call the new airline to get a seat assignment or they could be out of luck when they reach the gate, she said.

At the Comair ticket counter Sunday, an employee told a customer to go to the new airline and get a seat assignment. The lady, however, was not seen at the new airline’s ticket counter shortly thereafter.

The number of flight disruptions is significant, and every passenger has a story.

At BIA on Sunday afternoon, Jean and Franklin Hews of Brewer arrived from Cincinnati after flying on USAir. Instead of a direct flight from Cincinnati, the Hews’ had to fly to Boston, wait a while, then fly to Bangor.

“It turned out not to be a problem,” Jean Hews said, as she waited for her luggage. “The only thing was we had to get on these little puddle jumpers but it turned out to be a piece of cake.”

“We miss Comair, if you want to know the truth,” Franklin Hews added. “We had to change planes in Boston, walk 400 miles to our plane … I’ll be glad when Comair comes back. I’m afraid, though, they won’t be back.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.