While Northwest Airlines is maintaining close-to-normal operations during the strike, here's how ticket holders can safeguard themselves:

• Checking on flights: Reconfirm your flight 24 hours ahead and check its status before leaving for the airport. Sign up for e-mailed flight-change notification at www.nwa.com or phone 800-225-2525. To check on what time your flight was scheduled to depart or arrive vs. the actual time it left and landed the previous day, see www.nwa.com/travel/flifo/.

• If your flight's canceled: If there is a disruption, the carrier says it will accommodate passengers in several ways. "Examples include the waiving of fare rules, rebooking passengers to other Northwest flights, allowing the refund of nonrefundable tickets and in some cases, re-booking passengers on other airlines' flights," the airline said on its Web site. Make sure you have an extra copy of your e-ticket (or paper ticket) in case you need to transfer to another airline.

• Children flying alone: Do not send a minor to wait for a flight alone at an airport gate in case there are delays or cancellations. Get a pass from airline staff that lets you accompany the child through security to the gate, and stay there until the flight has left.

• The bottom line: If people have booked a flight through Northwest, and the flight number has two or three digits, it is operated by Northwest and potentially subject to disruptions during the strike. If it's a 4-digit flight number, it's a code-share flight operated by one of Northwest's partner airlines. Flights numbered 2000 to 2549 are operated by Horizon Air, for instance; flights numbered 4000 to 4299 are operated by Alaska Airlines; and flights numbered 6000 to 6799 are operated by Continental.

• Getting more information: Like most airlines, Northwest has policies for compensating passengers when flights are delayed or canceled. Details are posted at www.nwa.com/plan.

Information from the Detroit Free Press, Arizona Republic and Seattle Times staff is included in this report.