Northwest Airlines, my hatred for you burns like a magnesium and jet fuel fire.

The BBQ Pit
1

To the CEO, COO, and whoever else runs that joke of an airline, sit your ass down and pay attention: your customer service sucks moose balls.

You can’t even keep a flight on time. The only reason I even step foot onto your jetway is because you are the only airline that flies in and out of this town. Believe me, after dealing with your slipshod, ramshackle joke of an airline, I’m going to start scheduling miltiary airlifts to take me where I need to go, just to deny you your profits. However, I digress. Here’s the scoop (the unclassified version):

Every year or so, we send a team down to the swamps in the panhandle of Florida for a week, where we play in the mud, fix a practice airfield, howl at the moon, beat our chests, eat MREs, move dirt, play with bombs, etc. It’s an annual training requirement and we usually send anywhere between 10 and 50 people. Fairly regular thing. However after this year’s tribulations, I’m going to do some serious thinking of the logistics. . .

Sarurday, 20 June:

We show up at the office, and I take a headcount. 30 people in all, including myself. Two bags apiece, so sixty big green A-3 duffel bags full of gear, clothes, hygiene products, etc. At the last minute the day before, we were swapping names in and out of the team, and our travel agency was absolutely wonderful in getting their tickets issued at the last minute (to the tune of some $15,000). Yet, everyone has a ticket, and everyone seems to be in high spirits. So we pile our bags onto a truck, file onto the bus, and merrily make our way down to the airport to start our trip.

We wait for a while, check in, and finally get seated on the airplane. Some end up in First Class (I didn’t. :mad: ) while most end up in coach. And we sit. . .

And sit. . .

And wait. . .

And sit some more. . .

Thirty minutes into sitting on the tarmac, our ‘Captain’ of the plane comes onto the intercom: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain speaking. We’re a little delayed this morning, but we’ll get you off the ground in just five minutes..

Okay, no big deal. I can handle this. The flight to Minneapolis/St Paul (MSP) is only 50 minutes, and we should have a 1 1/2 layover there anyway. We’ll make our connecting flight. So, we sit back and wait. . .

And wait. . .

And sit. . .

And wait some more. . .

Finally, being the leader of the group, I’m starting to get a little concerned. I ask a passing flight attendant, “Um, pardon me, but are we close to lifting off? We have a connecting flight to make in MSP.”

Her reply, “Oh, we’re overbooked. We have to ask for volunteers to leave the airplane so we can make weight requirements.”

:eek:

Since when does a flight attendant handle the weight and load requirements of an airliner? Since when does the pilot or ground crew fail to do the math correctly? Since when does an airline overbook a flight, knowing full well the airport is undergoing construction which shortens the runway, thus limiting the passenger/cargo load?

As if right on cue not a half a second later, our pilot pops on again, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Captain again. We’re delayed because we’re just too heavy for this runway. We need to have 15 volunteers take a later flight so we can make weight requirements. I’m throwing in $300 and a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the Continental US, Mexico, and Canada for anyone that volunteers. . .”

And we wait. . .

And we sit. . .

And we wait. . .

As the pilot begins rattling off “great vacation spots” and “casual getaways” around the country, I begin getting agitated. I get out of my seat, and head to the flight deck. Two flight attendants, the crew chief/ramp agent, and some other guy are talking. I explain the problem, and the crew chief assures me they will hold up our connecting flight out of MSP. The pilot overhears me, and also assures me that he will personally call MSP to hold our flight. At this point, some knucklehead from First Class starts giving me shit. It happens to be the manager from The Guess Who, the legendary 70s band. He starts spouting off something about “Lieutenant? We call them 'Lefftennant!’”. After about five minutes of his ranting and bullshitting (which he thought was hilarious), I look him deadpan in the face and sing:

"He buddy, I got a song for you… It might sound familiar…

Canadian band guy, get away from me. . .
Canadian band guy, dude let me beeeeeee. . .
Your stupid jokes are a bore . . .
You don’t need to be talking no 'more . . .
I’ve got more important things to do than spend my time dealing with you . . ."

Long story short, I argue with the flight crew for two hours before we actually rotate tires. After an uneventful flight with no complimentary beverages, we finally make it to MSP with 5 minutes to get to the connecting flight’s gate. 30 people racing through an airport to a gate on the other side of the facility is something to see – if you’ve ever seen the Boston Marathon, imagine it with steroids. Four minutes later, we arrive at Gate B12 . .

No frickin’ flight!. It left without us. . .

Absolutely enraged, my 29 other troops and I storm to the ticketing counter and spend the next three hours getting reticketed. We end up getting split up into three groups, all arriving in Ft Walton Beach, FL at different times. First group arrives at 8:PM, second at 9:30PM, and the third (mine) at 11:35PM. Everybody has to wait for the group to rally up and get rental cars to drive two hours to our event. We all finally get there, and I’m hit with a new problem - no luggage.

Here we travel a full day, to an event where we need chemical gear, gas masks, shovels, helmets, everything a modern combat engineer needs – and it’s gone. Nowhere to be found. And the Northwest ticket counter and baggage counter close at 9:30PM. I am livid :mad:. Approximately 20 minutes later, half of the bags come in, and the Pensacola desk claims that “They’re all still at Memphis. They’ll be in first thing in the morning, adn we’ll deliver them to you . . . All we need is an address.” :mad: :mad:

The only saving grace is that ‘Lucy’ at the Hertz rental counter has enough rental cars to carry all 30 of us to Eglin AFB, where we can get a shower and sleep. We get up the next morning and due to Florida traffic. barely make it to the first meeting of the morning. After that, we go right into setting up the camp. Everyone on my team is in civilian clothes, erecting tents and shelters without steel-toed boots or safety gloves. It’s just plain ugly. But, we hunker down and get to work . . .

Fast forward to Tuesday, 23 July

Half of my people’s bags are still missing. Half of my people aren’t shaved, haven’t changed clothes, and are just plain ugly. It’s so bad, I have females wearing men’s clothing and underwear just to get by. I have one female who needs particular items 'cause it’s her time of the month ( :eek: That caught me by surprise!!) Besides that, it’s hot and the humidity is up around 125% which makes everyone miserable. And we still have no bags. I’d been on the phone with Northwest ranting and raving, making one person damn near cry, explaining that “I want to know where these bags are, and I want it now. I have chemical gear, diabetic insulin kits, medications, and even weapons (flat out lie) in these bags, and your airline has lost them. What the hell are you people doing?”.

That night, at 8:PM, a full two and a half days later, our remaining bags finally arrive into Panama City, FL. We have to go pick them up. My troops don’t care at this point. They soberly file onto the bus to retrieve their bags. They get back, and finally slip into clean clothes and gear. People become (somewhat) happy again.
.
.
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Northwest, your airline sucks. You knew we had a military team going down. Beyond all the bullshit and delays, your people flat out lied to me. It cost me several thousand dollars to make up for your mistakes, and we damn near didn’t make our training requirements. We even faced similar problems on the way back home – hell, you couldn’t even confirm our reserved seats in some instances --, but thank God we were flexible enough to accomodate YOU on that schedule. Needless to say, we all learned to pack overnight bags after this li’l experience. :mad:

Fuck you, and fuck your moron schedulers, your boldface lairs of a staff, and damn your quality control department (if you even have one), because apparently you just don’t give a flying fuck about the customer, especially when the customer depends on you.

And just to make sure you get my drift, fuck those happy-shiny-smiling people on the cover of your airline’s inflight magazine. 75 years of customer service? More like 75 years of screwing with your “service”.

Do not pass go, fly straight to hell, and never again collect $200 from anyone.

Tripler
I’d rather take AeroFlot from now on, than you . . .

2

Yeah, that sounds like Northworst. applauds

3

Write up a letter including a bill and have it signed by all 30 troops. Tell Northwest that what they put you through was unreasonable and you expect comensation for their screwup. If that fails, Conde Nast Traveller as an Ombudsman section that deals with things like this and sorts out goofs. You might try writing to them.

Also, thirty people saying they won’t fly NW again if they don’t make restitutions is an impressive thing to deal with. One dissatisfied customer tells ten people on average, so they are looking at losing 300 customers from that hub. Include that you will be telling everyone you know not to fly NW again.

And call them terrorists for delaying you :wink:

4

This isn’t the only fiasco that Northwest has been involved in if I remember correctly. Wasn’t there an incident several years ago when a Northwest Airlines flight was stuck on the tarmac for about 7 hours and the passengers were essentially treated as talkative luggage? Weren’t there several lawsuits charging Northwest with wrongful imprisonment? Didn’t the pilots threaten the passengers with arrest when they tried to get off the plane? Man, if I’d been on that flight, my lawyer would have had a field day with them.

5

Ye gads. KLM sure knows how to pick their partner airlines.

Not that KLM doesn’t have its bad moments, mind you. But this is much worse.

I’ve flown a Northwest 747 to Heathrow once. KLM flight, NW plane. I couldn’t believe the sorry state of that plane. Looked great on the outside, but my GOD, the interior looked like it was the 1967 747 prototype or something. It smelled even. Hey, for me it was a 45 minute hop to London. But those poor people carrying on to Detroit (I think)!

6

Tripler,

whenever i go to training exercises, i usually pack a change of clothes in my backpack. your experience sounds like a real nightmare. out of curiousity, was it silverflag you guys went to?

7

Well, Tripler is on my list of wonderful people, because he provided me with s’mores. So I would always take his side.

And NorthWest is on my list of horrendous companies, because they behave badly at all times. So I always side against them.

I live in St. Paul, so I essentially have no choice. (Except when flying to Europe. Then, demand a KLM flight. KLM flight crews rock!) But I have nothing positive to say about NorthWest. They have mistreated their employees and extorted tax payments from the state.

My mom flew in on Delta one time, and we were separated by security. I wanted to page her and let her know where we could meet. I couldn’t do it. NorthWest controls the paging system at MSP and won’t page passengers from different airlines. I saw her, wandering disconsolately, on the far side of the checkpoint, and actually ended up jumping up and down, waving my arms and shouting. It was embarrassing, got me far too much attention from security, and almost didn’t work. (I’m not loud or large.)

Flight attendants have been working without contracts. Maintenance people have been working without contracts. An acquaintance was their official spokesman, was out in public making excuses for them every day, and came to work one morning to find that his key no longer worked.

These are not nice people. Make a big fuss. Demand compensation. Tell everyone that they are allied with the terrorists.

Heaven knows, it can’t make things worse.

8

Actually, yes it was Silver Flag.

And 90% of the gang did pack overnight bags. It was two or three new folks that didn’t, and amazingly Northwest read their mind and lost their baggage – including both females. :mad:

Tripler
Even worse, is that they lost several bags on the way back!! :mad:

9

“Except when flying to Europe. Then, demand a KLM flight. KLM flight crews rock!”

OH YES! They do indeed! I like KLM myself. As for Northwest, I don’t really remember having any problems with them. Maybe I’m just lucky though…ehehe…

10

Yo, Tripler!

What’s your budget on these flights? Is that $15,000 typical?

Because your 10-50 people could fill a charter flight. Unfortunately, since I do my own flying I have no idea what the prices on these things are, but there are some distinct advantages to the charter route for your purposes, such as:

The airplane ain’t leavin’ without the folks that pay the bill.

You aren’t held to airline schedules or airline hub-and-spokes. Very likely, you can fly from Point A to Point B without any connecting flight, and in fact you might wind up closer to your start/destination points because you can safely use smaller airports. The wait prior to take off is shorter, the flight is more direct, and overall door-to-door travel time is almost always shorter.

Security is involved, but usually does not involve the lengthy delays of the airlines.

You know where your luggage is.

The downsides are:

It can cost more.

Weather might be more of a factor - a 747 can handle weather a smaller plane can’t, just a fact of life.

Some organizations have rules about you having to fly commercial airlines when at all possible.

Weight and balance is more critical in some ways - be sure to clear your luggage plans with the charter guys before you show up. Certain combinations of people/luggage/weight/balance are no-go, but if the charter company knows up front it’s a heck of a lot easier to make the customer happy.

I have no idea if this is a practical idea for you folks or not, but you may want to inquire about it.

11

I hate NorthWest. That should be enough for me to say.

12

Tripler, I purely wish that I’d had your 4.0 rant a while back when I landed in Tucson sans baggage. No big deal for me (I’ve learned), but a woman ahead of me at the lost-luggage counter pulled a major hissy-fit because she wanted to go to the spa and she didn’t have a thing to wear! Seems that she wanted the airline to pay for a complete new spa outfit (whatever that is). Poor dear, she left unsatisfied. . . .

The worst outrage that I’ve personally seen Northworst inflict was a couple of years ago on a flight from Memphis to Seattle. I hadn’t flown with them since the '60s (when it was known as “the world’s largest non-scheduled”), but it was the best way to get from Seattle to Austin. Anyway, they announced that in honor of one of Memphis’s better-known BBQ restaurants (Corky’s?), the “preferred” lunch selection in coach was barbecued beef–and beans. Not being as dumb as I look, and being in a window seat, I opted for the “krab” salad. Which was dismal, but I’m sure I rode easier than many of my comrades-in-misery. (Anyone know what the cabin pressure is in a 757 at cruising altitude? I don’t, but I imagine that it’s sufficiently lower than sea level that intestinal distress is raised to a new level of agony.)

So that this won’t be a complete hijack: in addition to the previous suggestions, one other approach for the next excursion might be to charter a bus (or two) to the nearest place where you can get on a real airline. I would run this past your compatriots first; but if you do decide to go that route, tell Northworst after the fact–what you did, why, and (if you can figure it out) exactly how much their lack of consideration cost them. One peril of being in a minor market is that the “powers that be” think they’ve got you over a barrel; but if you can show them that you have a way around their machinations, I imagine they would be more likely to sit up & take notice.

13

Cabin pressure in jetliners is supposed to be equivalent to 8000 feet above sea level. If you start on the coast, the pressure differential is quite sufficient to squeeze the farts and burps out of everyone.

14

I don’t know the logistics or planning of it, but next time, if I have a choice I fully intend to take “MilAir” down yonder, i.e. a C-130 or something similar. I know for a fact they can schedule sorties for these kinda things, because a couple of other squadrons we went down there with did the exact same thing.

I’m still torqued at the lackadaisical attitude of NorthWest. Would you ever accept an overpriced product, with average quality, late, incomplete, and with a major attitude?

I won’t, especially with 29 other people being force-fed the same product. . . :mad:

Tripler
Quoth myself, “Sir, where’s my fuckin’ bags?!?”

15

Although I’m sure this should have been taken care of before people got on the plane I was under the impression the airlines always overbook planes banking on a certain amount of no-shows.

They figure that the freebies incurred when people have to change flights is better than flying planes with empty seats.

Aside from that I agree with everyone else, write a lette, tell 'em how much business they’re losing. Hell, write to the papers or something. Tell them you posted on a message board with a large readership too.

Unfortunatly companies tend to take the stance that a certain number of pissed off customers is inevitable and instead of striving for no complaints (think of that for an slogan) they aim to keep the disgruntled percentage small. Trade off money lost pacifing people and through lost business against money needed to drive the service level to the point where everyone is satisfied.

I’m always amused when companies say “9 out of 10 customers said they were happy with the service” as if it’s a great thing. That’s still a pretty big slice of people who’re unhappy if you’ve got any decent number of customers.

Maybe I’m too much of a optimist, but give 'em hell anyway and hope they change their ways.

16

Another random question for Tripler - are you named after the Army hospital in Honolulu? Just curious - I was born there. :slight_smile:

17

Well, I have nothing good to say about NorthWest airlines (they stranded me in Buffalo – Buffalo! – for a very long day), but I do have to wonder if “Two bags apiece, so sixty big green A-3 duffel bags full of gear, clothes, hygiene products” might have been part of the reason why the flight was over weight. If this was a feeder flight to Minn/St. Paul, the airline might have reasonably expected to have the usual mix of overnight bags and carry-ons as opposed to a full deployment of very heavy luggage.

18

Ah, Northwest. Now, mind you, I’ve had bad experiences on other airlines, but I’ve had enough good experience that I shrug and say “Everyone has a bad day once in a while.” I’ve never had a good experience on Northwest.

It began years ago, when I was flying from Ohio to Phoenix to look for a job. For financial reasons, my flight plan sucked - Cleveland to Detroit to Minneapolis to Phoenix. But it was cheap and I was flying on my own nickel, so I didn’t care.

Flight from Cleveland to Detroit is a little late, but nothing out of the ordinary. Get on the plane in Detroit after walking through four terminals to get to my gate. We’re on the plane for a bit, and they announce that we’re going to be a little late. Okay, fine. Thirty minutes pass, and they say they’ll be doing a nice little tarmac beverage service, because we’ll be even more late. Umm…well - my layover in MPLS was only two hours…but, what can I do? Flight attendant hands me my Sprite, but isn’t looking at me as he does. Manages to spill it all over me. Without saying a word or looking directly at me, he hands me a few beverage napkins to sop myself up with, and walks away. Thank goodness it was Sprite and not something hot or colorful. Eventually, they tell us that we can get off the plane if we like. I do - and I go straight to the ticket counter to get reticketed, knowing that I’m going to miss my connecting flight. “It’s not my problem. I can’t do anything for you,” the snotty ticket agent says. “Oh, yes, you can. It’s your airline, it’s your problem.” She thinks for a moment, and, again without a word, hands me a ticket on a later flight out of MPLS. First class, amazingly enough. I call my fiance, and get back on the plane. After two hours, the captain gets on the horn and says that the problem involved the defrosting mechanism on the wings. But, apparently, we could have left at any time - he just would have had to fly at a lower altitude to prevent ice crystals forming, and that uses more fuel, which management didn’t want to do. But, since they weren’t able to fix the problem, and they didn’t have another plane, that’s what he was finally directed to do. Which meant that the entire delay could have been prevented for exactly the same amount of money and much less inconvenience! :mad:

Then there was my honeymoon. Mr Winnie and I flew from Phoenix to Cleveland for our wedding, then Cleveland to LA to Honolulu and Honolulu to LA to Phoenix for the honeymoon (there was a week in between there). Northwest all three legs.

Leg #1 (Wednesday): Phoenix to Cleveland, changing planes in Minneapolis. Dad’s making the ninety-minute drive to the airport to pick us up - at midnight, mind you. When we get off the plane in Minneapolis, looking for our connection, we are told that our connecting flight has been cancelled, but that the plane we just got off is going to Cleveland and we should just go back to our seats. Umm…okay. But gotta call Dad to say we’re getting in twenty minutes EARLY and with a different flight number. Thanks for letting us know ahead of time (when Dad called them, they said nothing was amiss). So we get into Cleveland and get our luggage. I had a little pullman bag that they had managed (God knows how) to break one of the stand-up feet off. They called it “normal wear and tear” - I don’t know how that was normal. I sure couldn’t have done it. But we’re there.

Leg #2 (Sunday, very early morning): We’ve had one hour of sleep. Get to the airport to discover that NWA had cancelled another flight going to LA the day before - so all of those people were in line trying to get on OUR flight. Which, it turned out, was also cancelled. We did manage to get on. This was the inevitable “child kicking my seat” leg of the trip. When I gave the kid a dirty look, the non-parenting mother said “He’s JUST a kid!” Okay - YOU sit in my seat then. That shut her up. And the kid didn’t do it any more. My dirty looks are famous. :wink: The rest of the journey to Hawaii passed without incident, amazingly enough.

Leg #3 (the following Sunday - which also happens to be my birthday): Get to Honolulu airport. Flight is going to be late. Figures - we could have spent more time in Hawaii if we’d known. But we’re hanging around waiting for them to finish whatever they’re doing. We knew we were in trouble when the airline gave us food vouchers for the airport. Great. Not that it really mattered - our layover in LA was impossibly long, anyway, as we were supposed to arrive there around midnight and not leave until 6:00 am. Better in Honolulu than LAX. Finally get into the plane and go, get to LAX and look at our tickets for the final flight. Hmm. That flight number seems not to exist (all the morning flights were already on the boards). In fact, there are no flights going to Phoenix at all. I look at the boarding pass we were given in Honolulu. Hmm. The flight number is completely different from what is printed on our itinerary. And the airline code is “HP.” That’s America West, as I know from my brief sojourn in the travel industry. America West is in a different terminal. None of the terminal shuttles are working at this time of night. Great. We walked to the next terminal at LAX in the middle of the night with our carry-ons. That was scary. It might have been nice had they seen fit to mention the change when they gave us our boarding passes - what if we were clueless about airline codes and the like?

I haven’t flown NWA since. Figure they managed to mess up four out of five (the return trip from Phoenix the first time was fine), and that was enough of a chance for anyone.

19

They’re impressively bad, aren’t they? I flew from Orlando to Seattle and back on Northwest once or twice with no problems, and then… Then on a flight from Seattle to Orlando, going through Memphis… oh my. The flight was overbooked as usual, and so we left Seattle an hour or two late. And of course, this left me with 5 minutes to get to my flight out of Memphis. Managed to just squeeze on, but of course my luggage doesn’t.

So I get to Orlando, and talk to the guy at the baggage counter and after filling out the appropriate paperwork, they tell me that they’ll have my bag out to me early the next afternoon. Since they can’t tell me any more precisely than that, I just take the afternoon off (which was dreadfully inconvenient itself as I was just getting back from vacation and had plenty of catching up to do). Four o’clock rolls around… 6:00… 8:00… I call them to ask what in the hell has happened to my bag and they tell me that it’s on its way but there were other bags to deliver and since I’m 120 miles from the airport I’m at the end of the schedule and shouldn’t have expected it until late in the evening anyway. Puzzled why they told me “early afternoon” when they meant “late evening,” I sat around reading. Ten o’clock rolls around… 12:00… I go to bed.

And finally, at 3:30 in the morning, I get a phone call. “Hi, this is the fine folks at Northwest airlines… could you give us directions to your home from the freeway?” You’d think they’d have thought to get a map or something, but no… And why on earth if they meant “middle of the bloody freaking night” did they say first “early afternoon” and then “late evening”? Hopelessly inept. Needless to say, I’ll fly anyone else before I fly Northwest ever again.

Still, half a day late is a lot better than 2 1/2 days late! (Aside: your first date there was Saturday, 20 July, I hope… A month and 2 1/2 days late would be beyond belief!)

20

WHOA! Yeah, just a typo. It should have been July. See how pissed off I am?

And Slacker, no. I’ve never even been to Hawaii.

Tripler
I’m still pissed. I’ll post the letter I’m drafting to them.