Northwest Airlines will not reduce its managers' pay next month as expected, but will instead delay the cuts until at least one major union agrees to concessions.

Minnesota Public Radio reported on Thursday that union leaders said the unexpected conditions for the pay cuts could make contract negotiations more difficult.

Airline CEO Richard Anderson had announced pay cuts of 5 percent to 15 percent for about 3,000 managers.

Union leaders said they took this as a firm commitment to cut the wages of Northwest's salaried workers. But Northwest officials, asked to confirm details of the cuts this week, said they would not happen.

Officials said the cuts were always contingent on at least one union agreeing to concessions. None of them have.

A handful of Northwest Airlines pilots will be cleared today to begin carrying handguns in the cockpits of the planes they fly.

The Airline Pilots Association at Northwest confirmed that the airline's pilots were among the 46 pilots who took part in the first training course run last week by the Transportation Security Administration, part of the new Department of Homeland Security. Trainees graduate today in Glynco, Ga., and will be sworn in as federal law enforcement officers. They will be issued .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols to use to defend their plane's cockpit.

ALPA, the union, wouldn't say how many pilots participated and wouldn't identify them, saying that would make the program less effective as a deterrent. Eagan-based Northwest Airlines declined to discuss the program, also citing security reasons.

In addition to firearms training, the pilots learned ways to defend the cockpit from terrorists and how to disarm intruders.

ALPA spokesman Will Holman said that all of the Northwest pilots who volunteered for the program have military or law enforcement training of some sort and aren't new to handling weapons. Pilots are required to keep the guns in the cockpit and will have to be recertified each year.

Holman said there's a "very big demand" to take the class and pilots are eager for more of them. An ALPA poll conducted last fall showed that 75 percent of its members favored allowing firearms in the cockpit, he said.

"We have thousands of other pilots that are interested in this program,'' Holman said.