OK. So I live in a hub city for Northwest Airlines which means I don’t have a ton of other choices. Well, they have finally done it. I am going out of my way to fly anything but Northwest from now on.
Not only do they suck, treat their employees poorly, not manage their business well, (i.e. govt. supplemented, complain about low cost airlines….) but they made me mad.
They sent me a promotion and I fulfilled the terms, but not really. You see there was small print. I didn’t pay enough for the flights I booked therefore I wasn’t eligible for the promotion.
Now it’s not like they communicated that very well. It was again in fine print. AND in airline code. So kudos to you! You got me to buy 2 flights that I would’ve booked through other carriers (on principle) but you won’t get me again.
I’m sorry if I offend anyone who works for Northwest, but I have to tell you, if you do, you should run.
They suck. I’m done. I’m sure that doesn’t mean much to them. The customer service agent that I politely communicated the fact that I’m not going to choose them for flying anymore was pretty non-plussed and reitereated it was in fact my fault that I didn’t read the fine print or work to understand the airline code.
Yeah, well screw you. It’s all about choices and when you are competing at the level they need to compete at, they shouldn’t mess with people. I wouldn’t be angry if they hadn’t made sketchy promises they won’t live up to.
Now, I am.
The Image Lab 
I am done with them i have one free ticked yet to use by this september and that is it. They are such a joke the way the treat people. I know longer have to put up with them I hav many more options now. Now they have mechanics ready to strike etc so screw them. I could not even find and email to complain on. They will on let you do that if you give your world perks number. yeah right. Fuck them.
I can’t believe I still have over 100K frequent flier miles on this lousy airline. The latest travesty? How about sitting on the taxiway for an hour and a half so that they could fix “load distribution” problems? What did they fix? Nothing. Just “calculations.” I’ve never seen this happen to any other airline. I am rooting for the mechanic’s union.
I just went on a trip with my husband and 2 children. We were held up in Boston because Detroit had a thunderstorm going on. The airport wasn’t allowing any incoming flights. The captain assured that anyone with a connection(that would be us) would be ok because he was communicating with Northwest. We got to the airport to find out that our flight to Orlando left on schedule. We got there 20 min after departure.
Now all of these people missed their connecting flight and the earliest flight out was in the morning. Not only did the staff for Northwest treat us like it was our fault…they were RUDE. They didn’t help us ONE BIT. There weren’t ANY hotels available they were all booked. Even if they were available Northwest doesn’t help with the cost for a room. You are welcome to sleep on their hard smelly rug. We had to search for blankets. Their blankets are paper thin and could cover a barbie doll!!! Again; they did nothing for us to make it any easier because “weather” is out of their control. Treating people like s&*% is their specialty.
Nashua, NH
Wow what a bunch of lame morons at NWA. I found this site jsut minutes after coming home today from the airport, because NWA cancelled our tickets. Not only did it cause a large amount of stress for my family (my wife and 2yr old twins are travelling too) but some embarassement.
It all started a week ago, when we found the lowest rates on NWA’s site. Well, we went ahead and booked the tickets online with a credit card and received confirmation and referanse nummer and the whole nine yards. Well, when we check in at the airport (here in Norway, a KLM partner), KLM tells us that NWA cancelled the tickets. Im like huh? What do you mean?
Apparently, what had happened was this. They “state” that when ordering our tickets online we used the wrong address for the credit card. A quick call to the credit company states otherwise. Besides, when you order online tickets, unless your credit card does not have the necessary funds, then you will receive your e-tickets and confirmation. Hence, the packing , and getting good ol grandpa to give us a ride to the airport.
Not only did they cancel the tickets, but they did it WITHOUT the decency or nerve to confirm it by calling or even email. The reference number and confirmation, and/or receipt of the transaction was invalid for flying purchases.
Right now I sit waiting to find out what just the heck happened. My wife and I are in awe as we try to figure out if our vacation will be. Any numbers or contact info to agents at NWA would be greatly appreciated. Another call just now to the credit card company, they confirm that their was no reason for us to be denied of credit card purchases.
NWA AGENTS please email me at vezina7@hotmail.com/ Thank you
Travellers: consider another airline, or take the train if possible. I would hate for you to deal with these “indian givers”
My Northworst horror story began when I took a trip home for Christmas 2003. I flew out of John Wayne airport in sunny Calitornia in mid December.
John Wayne has very strict weight restrictions for planes which fly out of it. We were informed of this before boarding the plane when the flight attendant announced that they were taking volunteers to be bumpted. I and four others volunteered. Northwest only bumpted one of us. He must have been really heavy!
So I boarded the plane with everyone else. Then the pilot announced that our flight was overweight and that we had to loose weight before we took off. He said we can do this one of two ways. We can burn fuel or some people can get off the plane. Then he told us that we were going to burn fuel.
We burned fuel on John Wayne’s runway for 90 minutes. The environmentalist would loved to have known about this.
When my flight finally got to my connection city, Minneapolis, the pilot addressed us again and told us that those of us with connection flights, if it had left already Northwest had already handled the problem.
When I got off the plane their was a table with numerous ticket itineraries on it for us to search for ours. I found mine and they had me booked for flying out the next morning. The packet for everyone thanked us for flying Northwest and then told us that Northwest was not responsible for any hotel charges.
At the ticket table, I met a girl who was also going to Grand Rapids. We set out to see if we could get home that evening still. Our journey took us to several Ticket desks. By the time we made it to the fifth desk, three others from our doomed flight had joined us. We demanded to see a supervisor.
The supervisor came out and told us that he deals with this all the time. Now that is reassuring! The home office listed the problem which caused us to miss our connections as WEATHER RELATED!
Here we burnt fuel for 90 minutes in sunny California and it was listed as that.
The five of us bonded and went out for dinner at Chili’s. We stayed in the restaurant for as long as we could since we had nowhere to go. Finally the busboy came over and told us that Chili’s closed a long time ago and that we had to leave.
We told him our story and he informed us that Northwest had a lounge right above them and we could spend the night there. It was the Chili’s busboy who told us about it, not Northwest!
The next morning we found out that our doomed flight had been changed to Mechanical Difficulties. Northwest listed it as Weather Related so all the people on the doomed flight had to pay out of their own pockets for a Hotel. The five of us were the only ones I saw from our doomed flight who did not pay for a Hotel.
I know this is getting long so I will try to shorten the rest. Three weeks later when I fly back to California from Grand Rapids. We had a blizzard. Flights were being cancelled left and right by all the airlines. My pilot was going to take us up evern if it killed us.
We left hours late so I missed my connection again. This time in Detroit. Again no flights until the next morning. I complained to a flight attendant and she had an idea. Get on the flight to Minneapolis and spend the night there again. And then the next day fly back to California. Since I knew where to sleep I did it.
I called the Northwest complaint line three times about my horrible experiences and two nights in Minneapolis airport. The first call I refused her lame offer. A couple months later I had reconsidered and decided to take the offer. I called back and an extremely rude complaint line clerk told me he noticed that I had already called about the problem.
He told me off and angrily told me the things which Northwest did not have to do with me. Then he hung up on me. Northwest has the only complaint line where they read you the riot act.
I called back and wanted to talk to a supervisor. I was told that they are all their own supervisor. In reality, everyone has a boss. Even Georgen Bush has a boss. the electerate. But not Northwest complaint line.
I took the meager voucher of 175.00 which was offered me and decided I would never fly them again after using it.
Well, it even got worse when I used the voucher and fly back to Michigan for the Christmas season 2004. The Costumer Service Rep never even entered my vouched into the system. So I was billed for the entire flight.
All of these operator errors are not isolated mistakes. They are an organized policy of desperation by Northwest to save money at the expence of their passangers.
I will never fly Northworst ever again. Who would if they were treated like I was?
About time this stuck up bastard sunck. What a joke for an airline.
Good bye I will never miss the loosers
UPDATE TO CHARLES SAYS
Well, my wife finally got to the States, but that wasn’t before NWA charged uor credit cards 2x for all four tickets. Plus, when they recharged the credit cards they booked full fair for my two year old children. Then a charge of $500 was added to my wife’s ticket because she was unable to make her first flight. Total charges by NWA: $5,700. Original Published fair we purchased $2,199.
Of course we are disputing the $3,000+ in charges, but just more hassle thanks to those losers at NWA. Can’t wait until that company bites the dust.
I agree, NORTHWEST SUCKS!! If this website didn’t exist, I would have created one myself. I had to laugh when I Googled NORTHWEST SUCKS and this popped up first.
I too live in a hub city, which will no longer be, if a majorityof people who fly NW feel the same way I do, becuase there will be no Northwest due to people refusing to use thier services.
I will in my future travels, pay more and even connect if need be, in order to avoid this airline and their complete and utter lack of any kind of customer service. Here are my experiences with this joke of an airline…..
We just returned from a family trip to Orlando which started out a bad experience(at least the flight parts). The skycab guy at Minneapolis was such a complete ass and jerk to us, he’s lucky I didn’t belt him one. The flight attendants on the leg to Detroit weren’t much better. Apparently only the right side of the plane is allowed beverage service. My husband was on that side, and my two kids and I were on the left. Somehow our side of the plane didn’t receive any beverages, nor any apologies, or reasons why. ?!?!?!?!? HELLO!?!?! Then we get to Detroit with not much time to spare to catch our connecting flight that was to depart from another gate. We scrambled off of the plane from MPLS doing the OJ Simpson through the terminal to the gate our flight to Orlando was to be at according to our boarding passes, only to read that that gate was departing to Newark!! So off to the display montiors to find out that the plane we just got off of, was the exact plane that was heading to Orlando. Now wouldn’t you think that they might have mentioned that over the PA system on the plane? Running through airports with a 5 and 8 year old at 8:30AM is not the funnest activitiy in the world.
Upon our return from Orland to Mpls, we checked in with the Skycab again, but the e-ticket kiosk outside didn’t work. Fortuanately he was able to check our bags at least, but instructed us to try one of the e-ticket check in’s inside. Of course, those didnt’ work either, and instructed us to have an agent assist us. WELL….there were two agents at the check in area, to help about 250 people! One was a ditz, the other a HAG! I of course, got the HAG, which also turned out to be a ditz. After standing in a disorganized line and watching this woman berate and treat people completely rudely for nearly 1/2 hour, it was finally my turn–although I was a little scared after witnessing her “customer service skills”. It took her 15 minutes to get our boarding passes(!?!?!). I walked over to my family to start handing them out, only to realize mine wasn’t mine. It was Shirley Carlson’s!! So back I went to the dreaded line full of disgruntled passengers wondering why in the hell they have been waiting so long. Fortuanately, as I mentioned to the group ahead of me that the woman was not only rude, but stupid(explained why I was back in line, and a little nervous, as now my flight was to depart in 1/2 hour) they kindly let me ahead of them, as well as the next few folks did. When I stepped up to the counter with my boarding passes in hand, the HAG asked me, “NOW WHAT?” When I told her she gave me the wrong boarding pass, she blamed me that I must have booked my tickets seperately. (BY THE WAY–THEY WERE ON THE SAME CONFIRMATION #, SHE SCREWED UP!) At any rate, I am sure Ms. Carlson didn’t book her ticket with my husband and kids….Fortuanately, it only took her a couple of minutes to produce the correct boarding pass. We made it to our departing gate with about 5 minutes to spare. This was a good example of why to give yourself plenty of time. Had I not realized the boarding pass was incorrect until the security point, we surely would have missed our plane…..and we arrived at the airport 1 1/2 early!!
The last complaint I have is somewhat petty, wouldn’t have bothered me had the other experiences not occured. It was the baggage claim in Mpls. There were two carousels for NW, and it appeared about 5 or more flights all waiting for their bags.
Carousel 14 said our flight, along with several others would be coming here. We waited and waited, only to see a few bags. Meanwhile, a woman coming from Chicago stated that her luggage was to be on that carousel as well, but came down Carousel 13. So we turned around to look at that one….they must have put ALL of the flights luggage on that one, becuase it was sooooo full of layers of luggage it was virtually impossible to pull of your suit cases. We joked that the employess HAVE to be doing this on purpose to piss off the customers. Oh well, we made it there and back safely I guess. But I will go out of my way to NEVER fly with those jerks again!! —Oh, a little side note, we did have a VERY nice flight crew from Memphis to Mpls. 🙂
Well, I can’t say too much however, I work for a major airline based in Minnapolis. And have my home and my family in Mississippi. Recently we were hit with the worst natural disaster in our history. I was in Mississippi for the hurricane. The day after Katrina hit I was able to located a working cell phone and called my boss in NYC. I ask for one day off (later in the week) not even knowing if we had homes to return to. I was told to hold on (by the direct manager at Laguardia) to speak to a Union Rep. if I needed time off. Two days later, after returning to the Gulf coast (driving from Hattiesburg Mississippi). I returned to find my home find. However, my sister had extensive damage. We were actually very blessed. Slowly we found out we lost friends, however we are now finding out we lost the beauty of our entire Gulf Coast and everything we grew up with.
Because my sister’s house was displaced, I fell within her home and hit my head extremely bad, and there might have been neck damage.
Gulfport airport was not opened, however AirTran was operating aircare flights to assist there employees (this company did nothing) and there owner was onboard. I was given a ride to Newark Airport First Class confirmed seat, in a pair of denium shorts, bruised and bug bits all over.
That’s not the 1/2 of it. After returning and confirming at the hospital that a had a concussion, I applied for FMLA and was denied by this company. My documents were for 2 days a month, if needed. And that was if, God Forbid I had an blood clot.
They gave me 3 days to requalify, but being in Mississippi, where am I to find a doctor (and the paperwork does state 8 days) –
I don’t have time to argue with this company. They have shown no concern for our residents of Mississippi Gulf Coast nor do they care about by small incident.
I can’t even begin to read any of your arguements or disagreements regarding airlines. This is my own problem and that’s sad to say after almost 19 years of service there are no word to express the feelings of disregard.
My employers should be ashamed.
Delta, Co, And Airtran went to every step from installing solar showers to mattresses for employees. The other airline in Gulfport did nothing. I will say the local manager for this airline from my understanding, did help and also, lost his home.
It is so sad that during the nations largest natural disaster there is no assistance and only help from your dearest friends at work.
What now can I possibly loose?
No Harm done Just And Other Victim from Katrina and An Airline
I pray every night that this miserible cluster of cocksuca’s called Northwest Airlines desolves! I had someone donate a Worldperks Business class trip to China and even got my confirmation number and seat assignments. On the very morning at check in, AFTER I had checked my bags and got my tix, the gate agent called me over and told me the trip was cancelled and I needed to collect my bags and leave the airport!!! Honest to God! They said the home office suspected the trip was some sort of EBAY deal, and so it is against the ruls, and therefore cancelled! No Fucking Way!!! They seazed the miles, shut down the account, and sent me home! No appeal, no nothing! just like that… If you fly these sons of bitches, I hope you suffer! WORLDPERKS
Very near the end of this airline I hope, Just like Pan Am and all the rest who screwed themselves out of business.
I am a platinum elite WorldPerks member and fly over 80,000 miles each year with Northwest. NWA used to be an excellent airline, but it seems that since Christmas 2004 NWA and its employees have been in a hard fought competition over who can alienate NWA customers more. The airline has done its best with schedule changes, broken luggage, cancelled flights and many, many delays. The employees have managed to keep up nicely with exceptionally poor attitudes, rudeness and general apathy to the legitimate concerns of all travelers, even very frequent flyers like me. I never thought it would come to this but I will be exploring other airline options in 2006. NWA and its employees just don’t care.
Hey I work for this “joint”…don’t fly em..they treat their employees like SH*T!!!
Man, oh man, NW is brutal. They don’t even serve free snacks, not even a tiny mint or bag of peanuts on a domestic flight over 4.5 hours. There aren’t any movies or tv shows on a flight of this duration either, even when there are tv’s onboard. They only sell SNACKS on flights this long as well. I was unfortunate enough to fly with them because they codeshare with CO. I would never fly with NWA again, I just can’t handle it! Those poor employees, I thought AC employees were dead inside…but I guess NW beats them.
First of all, an airline flys its passengers from point A to point B. Average trip about an hour and a half. Some trips are longer, sure. But do you really need to eat something? A pillow? Do you drive an hour and a half and complain there isn’t any food to eat? I don’t make much and I would really like to help you but put some perspective on this. I really think people get all bent outta’ shape for nothing. Do you go off on a FORD, GM or Chrysler worker when your car breaks down? If a flight gets cancelled that’s what the passengers do. If people took the time to understand what it takes to get a couple hundred people and their lugage screened and off on a flight, maybe there wouldn’t be so much bitching. Half the passengers cant get to the airport on time. Oh well, keep on posting if it makes you feel better. See ya in DTW!!
I moved to Europe, and they told me with no problem my abundant award miles would be transferred to my KLM account. After the address change, and 8 months here it hasn’t happened. My calls just are ignored and they blocked my account in Worldperks for online access. So my miles are nowhere anymore, and feel like I can do nothing to get them! one more to add to this list…
Hi, I think you are totally right. Great! – 🙂 Susan.
In reading these posts there is smal, albeit small, comfort in knowing that NWA has not truly singled me out as the sutomer they wish to antagonize and cheat.
With all due respect to the NWA employee who posted, I DO get what it takes. I am a business traveler who is a very frequent flier – as in at least two days a week. And yes, when I purchase transport for an extended period at a price typically higher then a one month car payment, you are quite right that I expect some service. Yes, when I fly from MI to CA, I believe I am entitled to some peanuts or pretzels. I can cope with paying for my drink if I have one. But the airline can’t manage the cost of a 2 oz pack of pretzels per passenger???? I remember in the old days when you got a meal, a deck of cards and other trinkets of appreciation for parting with your hard earned money. Now all I get is an attitude indicating I should feel priveleged to be giving my money to NWA, small print, a dirty aircraft and deceptive practices. At least when I fly a low cost carrier I do so with the knowledge of lower cost I get fewer services.
This past Christmas we had a medical emergency in the family. I called to see if I could change the tickets I had already purchased (originally scheduled the day after Christmas) to Christmas day as my mother had just been placed into the ICU with a very negative prognosis of making it out.
When I spoke with the ticketing agent I was told I could not use my existing tickets due to the fare restrictions but that I could reuse those later (for a fee of course). I could, however, get a fare adjustment for a medical emergency. We checked flights and the only seats available were in 1st class at full fare – $4200.00 for 3 tickets. Ouch. BUT since they would adjust the fare (upon my providing valid hospital paperwork), I would effectively get about $3000.00 back. We bit the bullet and paid for the tickets.
Now, after going through their “process” of review with customer service (clearly a mislabeling) they are refusing to give me the rate adjustment. In other words they deceived me, which induced me to part with money and they are now saying their files don’t have any info – not just info that doesn’t match my documentation, but NO info at all on 3 separate phone conversations with their people around how to get the fare differential taken care of. Odd, my phone records shows calls and durations, yet their files are….blank.
Pardon my English – but who the hell can afford to be out that kind of money? Certainly not my family.
I have an appointment with an attorney in two days and I am sending out the summary to some contacts in the media. I intend to make this a very unpleasant issue.
I am a sometime frequent flyer, about 3 times a year. I booked Northworst this time because I wanted to leave from Flint, Michigan instead of Detroit. I hadn’t been watching the news regarding the possible strike. Well I bought the flight insurance, what a ripoff. The Access American Ins informed me because the strike was a possibility my insurance would not apply. So I’am done with northworst. I usually fly Ameircan West, which by the way has a movie and does give out a treat. As far as eats goes I don’t mind paying for a small treat. I just don’t like going to Detroit. It’s a 2 hour drive and could be as long as 3 hours, that’s why I wanted to go from Flint. Northworst has the monopoly at Flint. Not many other airlines fly out of there. If you do fly out of Flint sometimes you must go to Detroit anyway. I’ll wait to see what happens today when they go to court. A contract is a contract and it should stand period.
The airline execs have totally drained “ALL” the life out of NWA.
It shows in the front lines eyes, a shame, goodbye.
Custom service at Northwest, are you kidding !!?? The worst, and as they are screwing their employees now, they are also in bancruptcy, maybe for the next 11 years, “fly someone else.com” !!
Unions seem to think they can ask for any amount of money they want. However, companies do not set prices, the market does. You cannot force customers to pay whatever price unions want toso they can have any salary they want. Unions make prices so high that customers limit their flying or go to a competitor for the service. Do I feel sorry for NW pilots that make $250k a year to fy one international flight a month….NO!
Do you think a top CEO would work for Northwest Airlines. The answer is “no”. The CEO would not want to hear whining all day long. If the CEO did take the job, it would have to be for a lot of money to compensate for the whining. Most of us would be fired for acting like union members!
Econ 101,
that is great that you believe union members are lazy, unfortunetly you need to read into how it actually went down a little more. The company imposed pay cuts, yes this sucks but it happens when the CEO’s sell all the company assets and take all the assets out of the company. The union members voted to strike because 1/2 of them threatened of being removed from pay roll (laid off.) So put down your fuc*ing Econ book and think about how much whining you would be doing if you worked for a company for 31 years and they decided to lay you off due to poor descions of the management. You fuc*ing retardicans all think alike, it is never the fault of big business. Always those lazy union members. The mechanics never made the decsion to operate one of the oldest fleets and most fuel inefficient fleets in the market that would be dueshbage management. Northwest employees have been treated the worst in the history of the airline industry, it shames me none to see this airline go quietly into the night, as it has wrecked so many lives already including my own. NWA who are you crapping?
I don’t think it’s the union members personally. I think that the company has clearly not been managed well. It’s evident in all aspects of the business. I appreciate you participating in the dialogue but I’d appreciate it if everyone remained respectful.
Thanks in advance.
evoljennifer
Thank you!
Gee, So sorry to hear about these bad experiences at Northworst my only comment to all of you is DON’T FLY THEM. THEY ARE ON STRIKE!!!
Northwest does suck and so does its soon-to-be-former mechanic’s union AMFA. I was a mechanic there. First, the company outsources a ton of work and guts everyone’s contracts. Then we walked out hoping to save our jobs, we thought it deserved a try. But then as a final backstabbing, our own union traps us in this strike by refusing to let us vote on anything and then deleting votes in Dec. when they finally did let us vote so that it wouldn’t pass! Come on, 800 people wouldn’t vote on ending a worthless strike and getting a crumb of something when all they have to do is go online or pick up the phone? Bad enough that the company’s offers got worse and worse each time. But Christ! Worse that AMFA saw to it that we got absolutely nothing and lost us tens of thousands of dollars in severence, unemployment, and recall rights when our jobs were already inevitably doomed at NWA.
The man claiming AMFA had a hand in his demise is a coward. This person has no idea what a true union member is and is willing to stab his fellow worker in the back for a few pennies. NWA is cruel and unforgiving. They have the courts and the laws on their side. I lost my job, but will only blame the true culprits; they are the scabs who crossed our picket line, and NWA management. The saddest part of the Technician strike at NWA is the fact other NWA employees (union people) volunteered to do our work when we went on strike. This essentially made them scabs.
NWA was once a great company, but after the LBO it began its slow death. The new owners took the company private and proceeded to strip it of many assets. The employees have become very bitter after watching the new owners destroy this once great airline they help build. I would never expect the same service I once received when I was a World Perks Member in the late 1980’s. The best thing that could happen is for it to liquidate and allow another airline take its place. Greed at this company has destroyed many lives, and has cost the tax payers millions of dollars.
There are far too many mechanical problems going on. Delays, cancelations, excuses ect. They made a mistake when they locked out their skilled and loyal aircraft repair personal and made the mistake of outsourceing to gypsy subcontractors and a handfull of union busting scabs. What was that CEO and his advisors thinking??? We shall not fly Northwest (now NorthWORST) Airlines until the real Aircraft Mechanics are returned to their own jobs that was taken from them by Mis-management and greed. They spent hundreds of millions making war against their own mechanics then dashed into bankrupcy playing poor. Bring back their repair personal and we will fly them again.
If you winers had to pay a fair price for air transportation over the last twenty years, the airlines would not be in the mess they are in. Compare the cost to driving. In fact next time drive, or take the train, better yet the bus. That’s where you realy belong.
As a former employee of Northwest Airlines (NWA), I found that the traveling public is extremely happy to get a deeply discounted fare to their destination, but will complain to no end when they don’t get their way, even though restrictions are clearly posted/printed.
One big common issue passengers have is overweight bags. We constantly hear, “My bag is only # pounds overweight – why do I have to pay the overweight baggage fee? I want to see a supervisor!” Another complaint is, “Why can’t the five of us sit together? We bought our tickets last week and paid way too much for them. I want to see a supervisor!” These complaints are not just at NWA. It doesn’t matter what airline someone is flying, many passengers are totally unrealistic with their demands. I have found that the biggest complainers are those who fly only once or twice every few years.
I always hated seeing a parent create a scene at the ticket counter just before boarding the aircraft with their kids on their way to Disney. I’ve seen many kids crying because they were frightened at the way their parents were yelling at the CSA.
Oh yes, as a CSA and you are yelling at me at the counter, you can be sure I’m going to do everything I can to help you – RIGHT! That exit row seat you demanded, just became unavailable. That 52-pound bag just cost you an extra $25.00.
We frequent flyers know what shape the industry is in right now, take the bad with the good, move on and don’t let some inconveniences or some rude person ruin our day. Believe me, I am an elite member on another airline and I see my share of airline employees who could be accused of having a bad attitude and not providing good customer service.
You always have a choice on your mode of transportation and the carrier you use. However, I can assure you that many of you complainers about NWA, will, indeed, fly NWA again by choice.
Hi Jerry. Actually, based on the latest statistics, NW is operating better than ever before. For example, on time arrivals % is up and the number of aircraft out of service is down significantly. What AMFA didn’t realize was that there were a large number of mechanics with comparable skills from their work at other major airlines before they struck. Now, these replacements are doing a better job and all striking AMFA members can do is make threats, ridiculous accusations and pout about NW (a company that was allegedly so terrible but for some reason worth continuing a losing strike over). I am for unions but against bad leadership whose hubris is so large, it results in many decent people losing jobs. I look forward to the insults as it proves my point exactly!
You think NWA treats passengers badly? Try this on for size. NWA shut down it’s base in Atlanta and promised all us Techs jobs in MSP if we so chose. So I moved myself and family up to MSP to continue my career at NWA only to be laid off 4 months later. Northwest had no intention of keeping us on, they just like to screw their employees as well as their passengers. It is all about upper mgmt taking all the money they can get and running (eg Richard Anderson Former CEO). Dont be suprised if that crappy Airline shuts down. Sincerely, Chris W.
YO, AMFA leadership does suck there is no argument there. But, that is not the only reason why all the mechanics are out of jobs. NWA spent millions paying to train mechanics to replace the AMFA mechanics. Then, they filed bankruptcy! Instead of training replacement workers maybe they should have saved the money and produced a new contract to the old, loyal mechanics who built the airilne. That is why NWA sucks, and no I will never fly them again by choice.
The ‘latest’ statistics you refer to in example are a crock as we all know from the inside. Do YOU not realize yet that NWA has the power to make anything they wish APPEAR ‘normal’ to the naive flying public, together with Wall Street and paid analysts? Not to mention hiding maintenance problems and incidents?
AMFA was and is fully aware that some of the scabs NWA would hire were coming from other A&P positions, but also aware of the poorer quality labor that would seep in. To claim these scabs are doing a ‘better’ job, shows that YOU are very unaware of the happenings inside those hangars. They were totally lost and screwed up the most basic of jobs until some AMFA mechanics crossed their own picket line. As far as that goes, some may be good AMT’s, but they definetely made a bad and morally wrong choice in scabbing. Time will show this to be true. The striking AMFA mechanics earned great recognition for their award winning maintenance program and were sought out by other carriers to perform work for them. The day this current scab group can claim the same, I would concede to your false claim. I won’t hold by breath and you sir, have little insight and knowledge.
Hey, cheap tickets come at a price. I gave up my career so you can fly cheap and the CEO’s could get richer yet. You wanted it, well guess what, you got it!
Enjoy!!!
Don’t need them or want them..kinda amazing it’s taken so long for you people to wake up.
i fianlly retired after taking all i could from red rudder. 4 mergers is
enough for me. sad part is that the other outfits aren’t much better.
the airlines are all just flying bus companies and people still expect
steak with their $99 fare.
i’m soooo glad i’m out of there.
Some people just don’t get it. Prices don’t change (or even go down) over the last 20 years, and we can’t figure out why service has gone down? Airline costs are up a ton in that time. Unions want big wages still to ensure air safety, most customers want to pay less for less service. This costs you your right to complain.
Your buying tickets on a bankrupt Airline. No only that, their Mechanics have been on strike for over 6 months. No point in trying to explain any further. You won’t get it.
You are all idiots!
Steenland needs his ass whooped. The Pilots, Skywhores, and IAM need to fuc@#ing rot in hell for doing scab work while the mechanics were out. I am so happy this airline is failing it needs to rot in hell with all of the scabs working there. Fu#k NWA.
Chase Says:
March 11th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Do you realize that any maintenance less then 15 min. is never reported. The airlines have a 15 min. grace period on maintenance. This is from the DOT so not to rush the maintenance and create an unsafe environment ! So for NWA, as long as they code any delay as maintenance and MEL (minimum equipment list), in less then 15 minutes they look great. And it has been reported many times that the FAA is paying closer attention to NWA’s Mel’s since the replacement of the entire mechanic’s group. SOOOO,, how do you think they’re staying so much on time… with all new hires,?Dose it really sound right?You know it doesn’t make sense, but the lure of Cheap tickets and fun vacations keeps you coming back for more. When things sound to good too be true they usually are. Fly safe Chase says, and I hope you don’t chase your a$$ into the ground !
Again in response to Chase and
any who refer to AMFA strikers as ‘whiners’ are throwing around adolescent name calling and nothing more. Any one of these fine men and women could have scabbed like the rest. Geeeez, d’ya think there might be a REASON not to. This situation is not only affecting them, but hundreds of thousands of blue-collar labor workers in this country. It did’nt start with them and it won’t end with them. Get educated will you and look a little deeper. Hormel, Delphi, Ford, Afscme and so on. They simply refuse to allow corporate thieves and the powerful elite to strip away their principles and dignity. Those who did not cross their own picket line will continue to walk through life with those values intact, which means far more to some than a buck or two. Yes, that’s a hard thing to decide and carry out and they have a right to be angry and oppose the injustice of it all. The stand they took when they said ‘enough is enough’ was not just for themselves, but ALL of labor (and well into the future). Some people just don’t get it. That’s sad, cause YOU ARE labor. Your kids and your grandkids will be dealing with some extreme repercussions that will come out of the thrashings of American labor and wages at the hands of corporate greed and the unbridled power they are displaying. It’s just plain WRONG and I commend any and all who have the backbone to take a stand against it, especially when self sacrifice is involved.
Northwest planned to get rid of their mechanices from the beginning. training replacements that were available was just the start.
Language in the contract, that was given by Northwest management years before said that NW could not lay off a mech. That is not off payroll.
They then demanded that AMFA agree to 53% reduction of staff.
It takes a 50% ratification vote. Or 50% would have to agree to give up there job. The demands only got worse after that.
NW knew that it was impossible for the mech’s to agree to this.
Northwest mgt. forces the strike. It was the same as a lockout.
The had there replacements and the figured they could go with them.
The mech’s realy had no choice.
AMFA stayed within the law. They did not call an early strike.
NW skirted around the law!
It is clear that it is past due time for the corperate elite idiots at Northworst Airlines (scabair) to settle with their real Aircraft Mechanics. It is not working without them. It was a true waste of money for that company to try. A return to work settlement is the only option available to Northworst management at this point.
Chase says:
AMFA didn’t realize was that there were a large number of mechanics with comparable skills from their work at other major airlines before they struck.
Mechanics with comparable Skills? No other airline in the US operated some many different types of aircraft ( 747-400, 747-200, DC 10-30, DC10-40, DC 9- 10-30-40-50, MD 80, 727-100-200, A320,A319, 757-200-300,and A330) on a daily schedule. Yeah they found Scabs that do what they are told to do ! They most assuredly did not find mechanics with comparable skills ! They found SCABS ! Think about what you are saying… These guys, knew they were coming in and take someone else chance to save their career! They knew they were getting paid less than the guy who had the guts to say NO ! They knew they would have NO SAY about how things will get done ! They knew.. even if it was wrong they had nowhere to turn ! They knew that no one will ever respect them again ! They knew they were wrong to take another mans job ! They did it for the money ! They don’t care, as long as the money keeps coming ! And you don’t care as long as the ticket is cheap ! But one day for a very short time you are going to care ! And what then ???????????? Will you be on time for your judgment day or ahead of schedule ? Think about that Chase. Think about gravity. Think how 5000 people can all think the same way, and only 800 or so can think differently, and cross that line ! Thinks about what it is to BE A SCAB !!!!
The flying public has very little knowledge concerning the level of professional technical ability required to protect them from substandard maintenance. I dare say that it will only be a matter of time until NWA miscalculates the ‘maintenance cost vs public safety’ ratio. Up til now, NWA has been flying on the coat-tails of the striking mechanics. I know this because I am one. Fortunately, I have not had much difficulty providing for my family. Alternative skills, perseverance, and determination never to associate with the most poorly lead, unorganized, disfunctional entity I have ever seen. It is a sad testimony to the history of the company to consider the number of colleges using NWA as a case point in study regarding how NOT to do business (crisis management, human resource management, strategic management). NWA spent more money fighting the pilots, the flight attendants, and the mechanics than they would have spent to pay them what they deserve. I predict they will pay even more when one of their state of the art aircraft cannot remain aloft with a full load of paying, praying passengers. Statistics have said that it has always been safer to fly than drive. Wanna Bet??
Why won’t passengers call or write Steelin and tell him what they think?
Why? Because they can. Companies cut wages and benefits, people buy cheap tickets, unions negotiate contracts or go on strike and deal with Railway Labor Act (if the company falls under that jurisdiction), blue collar workers fight for their jobs or move on, scabs scab, white collar workers that are non-union either take what they get or move on, executives the top 1% usually get a golden parachute or get the Enron treatment. So, as to your question why, because our country has grown, in my opinion, into the disposable society. It makes no difference whether you are the best or the worst if a buck can be made or saved there is someone there and they don’t care if you are just another dead body they step on or not as long as they get theirs.
John Donadeo
amfamember@yahoo.com
Former union rep, Eastern Airlines Northwest Airlines employee, twenty plus year airline veteran now wiring houses for a living.
This is a great forum because everyone, especially the costumer of Northwest Airlines can see what is happening.
I have to cut Chase a little slack. He can write but he is uninformed and so is the flying public. The thoughts and opinions of an individual are formed by which information he is willing to consume and agree with.
Issues like cheep tickets, safety of flight, fuel costs, weak unions, and scabs are tools used by airline leadership these days to lower cost. The leaders have the perception that a passenger is not willing to even pay a dollar more than the next airline. For some passengers they are right. As a result, today’s average passenger fare is so low it is impossible for an airline to operate, hence all the bankruptcies. That same individual will likely not even blink at reasonable costs and increases to other services he needs such as cable TV or the upkeep of his yacht. The costs have been lowered in all ways imaginable like employee input programs, reducing waste, inventing and using terminal ticket vending machines, eliminating pretzels, and outsourcing maintenance to other countries. The effort to avoid that dollar increase has cost the airline industry millions! It is seemingly a never ending and extremely costly effort.
The effort was ethically above bar for a long while at Northwest. But the efforts that were above bar dried up. The leadership went to the “dark side” and starting looking for unethical ways to cut costs. That is when I learned that decades of my devotion to this company was about to be lost.
The worst and most despicable effort involves the federal government !
The Railway Labor Act governs labor negotiations in transportation and if followed will result in a fair agreement. The National Mediation Board supplies a mediator to assist if needed and his guide is the RLA. The mechanics at Northwest had a contract with the company that needed renewal.
Northwest asked the leaders of our federal government to ensure no intervention. But the RLA provides intervention and protection during labor negotiations (ensuring transportation for the public, government, and businesses, protecting security and commerce). Northwest requested and was granted the mediator be assigned prior to the contact renewal date, a very unusual request but one that seemed reasonable considering the state of the industry. But my information at the time (early 2005) told of a mediator who was intentionally ineffective. Northwest negotiators held firm on a desire to have the new contract contain language that would allow a 53 percent reduction of jobs, a clause doomed to be voted down by the mechanics. The federal mediator had the power to resolve this, but chose not to. He even had the power to recommend a Presidential Emergency Board appointed and further on Congressional oversight, but he did not. In the end the mechanics were forced to strike on August 20th 2005, a strike induced by the agreement between Northwest Airlines and the federal government.
This account of what happened is true.
Layoffs and retirements were prolific post 9-11, especially in late 2004, early 2005. The remaining Mechanics who struck Northwest Airlines were the mentors of the company’s maintenance life line. I had 26 years and was at the peak of my career as a line mechanic. I was part of a team of seasoned mechanics making sure the big jets were safe to fly accommodations were satisfactory.
Am I angry? You are damn right I am. But I don’t blame Chase or people like him. He thinks and holds onto his beliefs but I doubt he really knows how messed up and corrupt Northwest Airlines really is, nor does he care. What he likely wants is the cheep ticket and some thread of evidence that he is right about the scabs doing a good job.
I blame the loss of the mentors on the obvious collaboration between company leaders and the federal government facilitated by the National Mediation Board. In part I blame our union leaders for lacking the backbone to bring litigation against the NMB for dereliction of duty. I blame president Bush for allowing such things to happen.
To the future customers of Northwest, I blame you for supporting a corrupt and evil corporation.
To the reader that postures in favor of what has happened, ask yourself “what if it happened to me?”
Is Northwest as bad as what everyone on here says they are? I personnally have not heard of any bad things out of Northwest lately, but that could be because Norhtwest has paid off the media like they have the FAA to look the other way. In the beginning I thought Northwest sucked for what they did to the mechanics but now I see it was a good move for the company, after all if you want to run a company into the ground get rid of your skilled labor that can easly be replaced and can find another job the easiest (unlike the pilots). I would like to thank Northwest management for the great work they are and have done in getting rid of unions by scabbing out at a higher cost then the savings they would have if they would have kept them. (cost of replacements + cost of training + cost of lawers + cost to all the managers and controls for there devotion and hours away from home + cost of bonuses to all executives = BANKRUPTCY) Good job to all of ya!!! Keep up the good work.
Northwest has always been a “blue collar” airline. In the past they never had any competition and even bought the competition when they bought that ratty outfit called “Republic Airlines”. I remember in the 70’s flying NWA to the orient, they always had the most filthy planes and were the only airline flying to Hawaii where the flight crews did not wear Hawaiian uniforms (like United and Continental) They were also the last airline to refurbish their 727’s getting rid of the coat racks above the seats. They used to also cancel flights that were’nt full to save $$. Things got a little better in the mid 90’s when Dasburg cleaned up the fleet and put designer coffee on board. The mechanics in detroit and MSP always looked like the most unprofessional bunch of slobs (pony tails, tattoos,earings) yuck! The flight attendants are a bunch of drunks, and have been in rehab or belong there. I hope they get their act together. I don’t think that this Steenland is the guy to do it though.
The people who fly on northwest and think management did the right thing… replacing their mechanics. Are the same kind of people who watch Braveheart and root for the English King ! “Send in the Irish, arrows cost money”. When you think only about the money everything starts to cost too much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ticket prices are the same today as they were 30 years ago, but your not getting anything close to what you got 30 years ago. The last thing the airlines could cut to save money was the maintenance and safety of the aircraft. Well today… 30 years later, that is also history. So now that 30 year old ticket price, is likely to get you the least expected,and the biggest bang for your buck.
Don’t understand what I mean… keep rooting for the King. Then try reading the daily Aviation reports about emergency landing, cabin pressure problems,and smoke in the cabin of nwa 747. Just about everyday there is a close call somewhere in the world. It’s coming to a head, and nothing will stop it if the people don’t react!
well now the cusatomers can understand what us employees always felt, nwa is equal opportunity,, they will screw ANYONE come on people,,vote with your $$$$ dont reward mismanagment and incompitent executives. fly on ANYONE, preferably one who pays thier bills ie not hiding in bankrupcy. and just think, you also belive them when they say the aircraft are SAFE??
see a red tail? TAKE THE RAIL!
Some comments after reading this blog:
I was a former nwa employee, laid off just before the strike. I received a little severence, but that ran out quickly and I have since moved on. The best thing I have going right now is a future, not with a large company that is bent on a crash landing with it’s employees and the flying public, in an industry that requires immediate government bailout since after Southwest uses up it’s fuel hedges they will ALL be bankrupt!
I believe that a company that will suceed will
1) controll its own processes
Controlling it’s own processes doesn’t mean going overseas to look for the cheapest rate of labor. For the short term gain of cheaper costs you sacrafice the ability manage your own future-indeed you put your future in the hands of others who may or may not have your best interests in heart. Think of Ancient Rome when it hired foreign armies to protect it’s soil, only to have them turn on them when they weren’t compensated.
2) realyze that it’s greatest asset is not its equipment or investment capital, but it’s employees, who are it’s face, hands and feet that the public recognizes. Rightly compensated, TRUTHFULLY DEALT WITH, they will embrace the sacrafices that any business goes through, de-meaned, lied to, betrayed, and they will sabotage any effort you will make though you have the best equipment and investment capital.
3) make the customer and their needs your TOP PRIORITY.
It doesn’t mean giving away the farm-that would be a charity and not a business. It does mean saying, “How can I help you”, versus “What do you want”. The first is a sincere desire to put their interest above your own to the degree(and beyond) that you are able to do so; the second is to regard the customer as an intrusion or an annoyance in what you’re doing. What is the price of pretzels or pillows(or meals for that matter) when it meets a very real need and, furthermore, endears the customers to you rather than treat them like cattle. A business will find it’s customers will prefer them if they sincerely address their needs, they will also find that someone else will beat them to the crawl for the bottom line if they don’t.
I apologize for not foaming at the mouth or ranting at some of the more despicable things I’ve observed at my time at nwa. Actually, I’m grateful for the experiance and especially the people-mgmt.included, who out of their own time and money helped out and made other’s lives easier.
Well it looks like the scab airline made it through the worst of Minnesota’s winter weather. Now lets see how they fare in the worst of the Midwest’s flying weather. This is the season most dangerous to the safety of the flying public. Surprise spring snows, and freezing rain storms, Summer’s, thunder and tornado storms ! And all of this performed in questionably maintained aircraft. Radar spoking problems, Pack air-conditioning problems, Hydroplaning and antiskid troubles. This is their season, and it is now time for the scabs to perform what has been printed on their dance cards. Will they waltz’s through the dangers as the old professionals did? Or will they step on each others toes and look as bumbling fools? Will they live up to a standard the flying public has come to take for granted, or will they look as poorly skilled as the Northwest executive management team? My bet is – that the price of the cheap seats will reflect the talent of the performers! Guy Meeks, stated it best, ” 2006 is going to be a terrible year”.
Tell me about nwa. I worked their for 15 1/2 years. What a bunch of ass holes. Starting the the klingon look a like doug steenland, next to the anti-American fat S.O.B. andy roberts. The have ruined a one good airline. I can’t wait untill they die and go to hell!
It’s worthless to speak of any AMFA cause as though it encompasses the collective whole of the membership. After the start of the strike, we members have been dragged at gunpoint to continue a strike obviously lost after the first month. Yes, Northwest planned to replace us from the start and successfully did, which is unforgivable. But this is expected from such a monstrous company. What was NOT expected, was the backstabbing treachery that forced us to continue a worthless, impotent fight perpetrated by AMFA. We were not allowed to have any say about keeping the strike going three times. Then AMFA clearly rigged the fourth vote in December, since about 800 votes magically disappeared as though those members didn’t care to vote on something so important–just enough to have more than passed the NWA package that would have given us something and ended this strike. AMFA lied about being a democratic organization. AMFA lied about the mysterious identities of SCABS, why are there so many? Could it be that after the third time of being told we could have no say in late October that some began to cross? I would never do it, but I understand why others did. Finally, AMFA continues to lie about its ongoing efforts. It wasn’t enough to rig elections and force the majority to continue a strike by the 1/3 of the remaining 3000 membership who voted NO. No, the leadership, especially at the national level, saw fit to desert us. The Generals have left us on the battlefield with nowhere to go. Where is Delle-Femine? Where is McFarlane? Where is Jim Young? All the head honchos are either absent or have moved on, showing that even their faith has crumbed in this initially noble, but not failed adventure. Our leadership is gone, we lack more resources than ever to fight NWA, and the picket lines have collapsed since most of care not to do anything for AMFA after their betrayal or if we do, we have to work other jobs now and haven’t tiem for such waste. Yet, the strike continues. WHY?
Today’s headline; Northwest buys FLYi operating certificate.
This headline should read; Northwest employees buy FLYi operating certificate.
How else does a bankrupt company buy another company and still have plenty of money left to pay executive bonuses?
This blog’s name couldn’t be more correct! NWA SUCKS, and the employees are suckers.
The Scab on nwa’s ass is so large now that when it falls off, if ever, it is going to leave such a ugly scare that even Steenland well look good by comparison! But andy,…. He will still be short. little man will never amount to much. No matter what country he runs to.
trolls
In Norse mythology, repulsive dwarfs who lived in caves or other hidden places. They would steal children and property but hated noise. The troll in the children’s story “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” for example, lives under a bridge and is enraged when he hears the goats crossing the bridge.
How fitting that andy lives in Minnesota.
You guys are Idiots for those of you who support NW’s decision to finally get competitive I salute you. I am happy that Nw will finally get the revenue it needs to help get its self out Bk. Ya sure if United, Virgin and Southwest can do it’s ok but if the Red Tail Shark does it it’s just not cool right, ya thats what I thought. I’ll bet most of you are those militants you call AMFA lol you guys make me sick all your whining because NW got rid of you. I mean you only joined AMFA because of money anyway so use it for extra legroom oh wait I forgot 15$ is way to expensive.
NORTHBEST AIRLINES
Nwa Rocks Says:
I mean you only joined AMFA because of money .
So nwa rocks;
why do you go to work ? If they stopped paying you or just paid you less wouldn’t it make a difference? And how many times would the company have to do this before you stood up for yourself?
I didin’t vote for AMFA “just for the money”, how would you know what or why I voted? I believe you may work for NWA and have a warpped opinion of the AMFA emplyees. Now NWA wants to charge $15 for premium seating when prior to this time they would not even consider $5 for a fuel surcharge, a cost that they claim is draining the company financially and the a 25% pay cut and loss of over half the jobs in the AMFA group would help fix? Go blow smoke up some elses butt Mr. and take that little dog Dougy with you.
NWA Rocks is an Idiot. You have no idea how or why there was a confortation between AMFA and NWA. Do some reading and try again
I have worked as a Flight Attendant (slave)for this evil carrier far too long 12 shitty years….Im on my way out this year as soon as my home sells!! I was paid $12,000 my first year and stayed because they showed me a form stating I would make upto $50,000 in my 12th year….well I made under $20,000 my first 7 years,,,,when I finnaly reached the $42,000. mark this year I heard on the news( our PFAA union doesnt tell us anything!) that we were geting a 21% paycut. My Jan Check was $1,700, Feb $1,700, and March $2,000….well guess what folks that adds upto 50% paycut! I now make $20,000 a year after 12 years with this screwed up operation all the flights are full!!! How do we loose money and then the C>E>O Doug Steenlan has the balls to take a 4.5 milion dollar bonus….What a disgrace that this country lets this happen!Oh and they are changing our Medical insurance from no deductable to a $350 deductable and then 80/20. Why even have insurance .They charge us to fly now! They only pay the crew based on the Railroad act…I work 14 hours and get paid 7. Its like slave labor…oh and dont forget we now sell food on the plane like a common waitress! I hate this Airline and I think Passengers should stop flying them and the employees should all quit!! What a night mare!!!!!!!So now you know why the employees are not fucking smiling and kissing ass anymore!!!!!! Its charity work so fuck all the rude ass people!!!!!And screw the stupid people who support Northwest they deserve what they get!!! You get what you pay for and we are not getting paid so you get nothing!!!!!
Oh and about the scab mechanics that stold the poor good loyal mecahnics jobs..This is the inside scoop!The scabs dont even know what a halon is. They supposidly fixed a cargo door only to have it open again in mid flight, I was working on that plane!!…Do You feel safe knowing that. Folks Its a sad day when saving money comes before safety. When Northwest kicked the 15 years and up experienced mechanics of the property and replaced them with people in unexperienced blue suits that dont speak english(FAA ALLOWED THIS!!), no teeth and Tatoos galore. I knew it was time to go!This year they are lossing 1,000’s of the good pilots (going to foriegn country’s to work because they will get paid) replaced by 20 year old pilots who will work for the $21,000 start pay for NWA Pilots. Flight Attendant who are there to get YOU out safely will be replaced by 18 year old kids who dont know there ass from a whole in the ground will be paid $10,000 a year to get you out safely….hmm it will only matter when its you sitting in that seat and the engine fails because the stupid scab machanic did’t know what was going on,then the pilot freaks because he not too confidant on that BIG airplane then the Flight Attendant runs in the bathroom crying because she doesnt know how to do the Passenger emergency briefing…Well then it will matter..for now Fly another airline and be safe for god sakes money should not be that important pay the $50 more and read about someone elses missfortune on NWA in the paper!!After all the C.E.O is safely sitting in his mansion bragging about his 4.5 million dollar bonus! Thanks Doug Steenland for stealing our money and causing 10,000 Flight attendant to go from middle class to poverty stricken over night..this should help the Bush economy.
I’ve worked for NWA for many years and it breaks my heart to see what this company turned out to be. Coming to work every day and hearing nothing but pissing & moaning from all the employees(including myself)really SUCKS!
NWA was out to get rid of AMFA,and did,but who could blame them? The mechanics were the most unprofessional looking & acting employees,and yet they wanted to be treated like professionals. I’m not talking about greasy uniforms(it comes with the job),but if passengers saw pilots or f/a with tattoos,earrings,ponytails or trailor trash looking retards they would walk off the airplanes.The AMFA mechanics looked bad,but the new scab mechanics look even worse!! God forbid any passengers sees those guys!
Take some good advice mechanics……If you want to be treated as a professional try to act like one.
With any luck NWA’s airplanes will be sitting out in the desert in a few years. I won’t fly ’em. Sooner or later poor maintenance is going to cause an accident. When this happens it will be the end of NWA. It would be good to see ’em go. Another crappy US carrier belly up.
“NWA flight attendant Says:..this should help the Bush economy.”
Again, we blame G.W.Bush – the almighty! Crawl outta your finger pointing, pitty me hole and open your eyes to reality. The economy IS doing well, just not for you. I work for the same company you do. I’m upset NOT mad. This sh*t happens.” What does not kill us-makes us stronger”. Doug Stealn’ isn’t loosing sleep over us, i’m not going to loose sleep over him. But call it what it is. Stop blaming the Bush Administration and point your finger at Dougie and the boys. They’re making the rules here not us or George for that matter. Bare with it or move on. Gettn’ pissed will shorten your life no one elses’ 😉
NWA personally is the best airline. I have not had a problem with them. I think they do a wonderful job, I hope to be able to work for them in the near future.
I am originally from Jacksonville, Florida and I used to make complaints about airfare prices. I would always say how bigger airports had cheaper fares and etc. But this poor analysis was based upon not staying in a hub city.
Unfortuantely, I have relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
I mean no disrespect to MSP but this place seems like the worst place in the world for Airfare. NWA needs to go belly up, I really hope that NWA goes bankrupt so that we can some low cost carriers into our HUB. It makes no sense to me that I was quoted for a trip to Ft. Lauderdale for about 500 and Japan only costs 700.
The expensive airfare to Florida which is my home, has essentially displaced me from my relatives and family. Even when attempting to book airfare 3 to 4 weeks out, Airtravel to my home state is just ouragesouly expensive.
My Prayer is that NWA leaves this city, I mean no disrespect to those employees and folks who work their. But it makes no sense that our airport is the 16th Largest in the world for Passenger Traffic, yet we have airfare like we are in some backwoods town.
Peace.
I have flown over a million miles with this carrier, and continue to fly them at times, not by choice of course, but because my employer uses them.
Among the numerous horror stories my family experienced with NW was after we boarded a flight from HNL to Seoul. Just before the flight was set to depart, a NW agent came on board and in front of all the other passengers, stated that we were never to have been allowed on board. He ordered all of us (family of 6, including infant) to disembark and threatened to have us arrested if we did not cooperate. In order to avoid an ugly and potentially dangerous incident, we cooperated. In the shuffle, a bag of valuables was left on board and never recovered.
About an hour later, after several nasty exchanges, including accusations of a history of “air rage”, NW apologized, claiming there was a mistake in the records. They did put us up overnite in a hotel and on a flight the next day, but would not offer any other compensation, not even a written apology. I have continued to request appropriate compensation by mail, email and phone, but only get standard form letters in response. That delay caused me to miss an important public event, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and did not publicize the incident. I continue to wait patientlly for a satisfactory response, but may soon be forced to take legal action.
All this despite the fact that they still send us a “platinum elite” card each year because I make 5 transpacific flights with them per year.
As a USG official and as an American, I am truly ashamed. What a horrible example of American culture and business ethic.
The good, the bad, the ugly. NWA employees tend to be courteous – that’s the good. NWA aircraft are the Hugos of the modern air fleet – the bad. NWA management – well let’s just say that they ran blindfolded through the ugly-forest and managed to hit every tree at least twice.
I recently was flying from BOS to IND. My first flight was cancelled due to maintenance reasons – yup, the bird took a dump and they could not get a replacement in. So after standing in line for two hours to get re-booked and then sent to a hotel, I ended up at the Wyndam in Chelsea.
I then showed up at Logan @ 4:30AM to check in for my replacement flight – to my surprise, so did about 150 others who were stranded like me the night before. After getting checked in and boarding a flight from BOS to DET and then to Columbus (where my wife was to pick me up and then drive the 3+ hours to IND), NWA informed us that both the air-conditioner on the flight was down and then the navigation computer crashed. We were asked to disemark and rebook our flights. Luckily, my travel agent was able to find a flight back to IND, but unfortunately, it was NWA again.
After re-booking, I went to the NWA world perks lounge and asked that since they screwed me twice in less than 15 hours, would it be alright to crash out in the “ivory-tower” for a few hours while I waited for my next flight. Care to guess at the response – I could, if i paid $85 for a guest pass. They cannot maintain their aircraft to the point that they can fly any better than a cinder block launched off a rubber-band slingshot, but expect me to pay them for the right to sleep in a lounge offered to frequent fliers (I am a consultant and travel at least 40 weeks a year.)
NWA, to put it in terms that maybe even you can understand, you blow dead dog. Your gate attendants were helpful and courteous, but even they complained about how your organization prohibits them from taking even cursory steps to keep a frequent flier member happy.
Hopefully, the next time a member of congress flies on your POS aircraft, they have the same experience a day or two before you come-a-begging for another suckle off the gov’t teet.
I will be transferring my mileage to Continental – they may have old aircraft, but at least they fly – and cancelling the remainder of my booked flights in favor of another carrier. It is no wonder how carriers like AirTran and JetBlue are kicking your collective arses!
NORTHWEST SUCKS BIG TIME!! I was a northwest reservations agent. I just quit my job. NORTHWEST SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am a former Northwest Airlines human resources executive. Steenland and I went rounds about this stuff. I constantly told him that what the company is doing is wrong. I said that we needed to invest in our employees, not take away what little they had left. I told him, “The only way to enhance productivity and efficiency around here is to keep the employees happy. The more we give them, the more they give us.” He wouldn’t budge. He’s nothing more than an accountant. He just kept saying that making people happy doesn’t cut costs. He failed to realize that it really does cut costs and also enhances revenue by KEEPING THE CUSTOMER HAPPY. I left him a note the day I walked out that said “Happy Employees=Happy Customers=Profits.” I am now working at Delta and obviously Steenland didn’t heed my advice.
Without going into long drawn out details,
NW sucks, they care nothing for their customers and I hope they go under soon which will be a type of customer ervice because they have none now.
If there are any Northwest CSR employees out there… please reply. I have just been offered a CSR position at NW and am hesitant if I should take it or not. I currently have a not-so- great but secured job that I have been in for the past 8 years and am afraid of the unknown of NW. Do they plan to layoff again? Is it hard to fly as a non-rev because of limited seats? Do they charge employees to fly? Please help me make up my mind by answering some of these questions… I’d appreciate it!
Tonight we got to checkin at NWA at 6:00 with the flight leaving at 7:00 and when we got there, they had already shut down the computers and were leaving with their lunchboxes. There was plenty of time to get on the airplane, which was right next to check in, but there was noone there. So I, standing baffled with 11 other equally baffled people, took it upon myself to walk behind the counter and knock on the door. A guy behind the door jokingly said “nobody’s home.” Thirty seconds later he walked out and told a lady getting very angry that there was nothing he could do because they had already shut down the system. Everyone started calling the NWA hotline trying to get some answers as to when they closed so many off the flight and everyone got the same results. So, in 3 hours I’m going to try to get on a flight at 5 in the morning. If I don’t get what I want I will build a class action lawsuit against NWA, and I won’t rest until they pay.
I agree with everybody…..NorthWest Sucks! I bought a ticket for my Mom to see me in the hospital, I had to change flight dates due to a major surgery I am having…after days of attepting to contact somebody with half a brain….they hang up….F you Northwest, You Suck….I will never book another ticket with you again….Greedy bastards……F you!
I reserved an $800 ticket from NY to Hawaii last year and ended up cancelling because I found one leter that evening for $399. First of all, reservations usually disappear if you don’t call to confirm. I didn’t get why they had taken down my credit card but it made me uneasy so I called back, it took so long for reservations to answer that I fell asleep in a pile of drool on my desk.
When I woke up and called again in the wee hours of the morning, they said it was my tough luck and I had bought the ticket–nonrefundable. The agent said it was valid for one year and that I should call back with in 3 months to re-book. I said I didn’t want to leave any loose ends so I wanted to book it right then. The agent said I could but kept trying to convince me to wait till I knew better what my plans would be. We went round and round about it, but I was sure that I had left it that the ticket was booked.
I got my bank statement and it had the NWA charge and “ticket mailed” right there on the line item. Well I didn’t receive the ticket and called back after about a month and was told that it had not been sent out and they would send it out right away.
As time passed, I forgot about it (hmmm.. is that planned into the process? is there a bonus for convincing peopel to wait so they forget to book it within the 3 months?) except for the fact that I had a flight to HI for 10/10/2006.
Now, I have reason to go to Seattle, so I called to change the destination. I was told that I didn’t call back within the 3-month limit and my ticket was void. The agent said there’s nothing they can do at reservations and I could go on the web or call customer service. I went to the web and sent email email clearly stating that I was not requesting a refund but a destination change. They didn’t even read my email because they sent back a canned response that I could not get a refund.
When I called customer service, in the maze of menus and optional numbers to call, there is no option that covers wrongly voided ticket. I followed every option and variation to the end of each branch and you can never get to a person. Several options merely hang up on you. Many have only pre-recorded information. And when I put in my ticket number, the automated response is that that number doesn’t exist and hangs up.
Is there any recourse?
I used to fly NWA a lot, and they do really suck. Their management is extremely poor, service is a piece of crap, always lose the luggage, something always has to go wrong.
I used to work for PanAm airlines and fly the B707, I knew some people who worked for NWA, they didn’t have anything good to say about it.
Carol, with the ticket snafu to Hawiaii, contact your credit card company and dispute the charges, after all, the only thing that company understands is money and the only way to get their attention is to get in their pocket. Good Luck.
John Donadeo
amfamember@yahoo.com
Having worked for Continental during the Lorenzo period, I thought I had seen everything. I left in 1989 and could not believe how management treated the employees. Well I had no idea that when I started over at NWA what my future would bring. I am a steller flight attendant. I worked for MGM Grand Air and flew celebs as well as royal families around the world. I did the Madonna tour! I was treated with respect and I felt happy. I am a great employee and always back my company out of self respect. In June of 2000 , I was on a flight from Amsterdam to Newark. A passenger started trying to open doors and was acting crazy. 2 hours later he had managed to get into the cockpit and 2 business class men helped me pull him out of the cockpit and both me and the passenger helping were bit and I was beaten up against a galley module. Thus began my war with NWA . It took 5 months to get an MRI, and when I did I found out I had 10 herniated disks , 3 ruptured, and needed spinal fusion. My spinal cord was severed. I went to my workers comp hearing in New York. The Judge had the Captains report to the FAA, the Newark police report, the port authority report and the flight attendant report back to me from the FAA. The Northwest lawyers stood there and said” As a corporation we have no record of this ever happening….! I knew at that point that I was at another Lorenzo type airline. I finally had my spinal fusion and 2 years of physical therapy. I recovered well, except for some nerve damage on my right side. Now we are up to 2006. Under forced Contract, I flew 9 days straight with 13 hour duty days and 9 hours layovers. A flight attendant noticed I had blood coming out of my ear. I went to the company nurse in detroit in full uniform and she confirmed that I had a ruptured ear drum… I am now told that my condition has nothing to do with flying. The same week, Alaska Airlines had 10 passengers and 5 crew members hit with the same ear trama during a slow decompression. It seems I have a nother battle ahead of me.
For those of you that think that Flight Crews are spoiled, let me give you some little known facts. We are not governed by state and federal labor laws….The Railway labor act states that our work rules , duty days, time off, and benifits must be negotiated by Union Contract. Its not like we have the luxury of an 8 hour work day. We have no choice but to be union as that is the only thing that keeps us from being slaves . I am over the fight. The working conditions are like going to war. Threats from mid management to devide and concor the troups. I dont think I will make it through this imposed contract. I tell people I work in the united slaves of america. Some passengers call it the walmarting of the airlines. I call it greed. Now at age 48, I endure cronic back pain from handcuffing a passenger and have lost 50% of my hearing. So next time you see a flight attendant that looks like the life has been taken away from them, consider this…some are loosing homes, some are physically falling apart from doing their job including handcuffing passengers, and some have just crossed the line into depression so deep they cant find their way out.
But its all good….John Dasburg gets his 8 million a year retirement, as does Doug Steedland when he bails out after we emerge from bankruptcy.
I am not a big fan of President Bush, but I do like his term “evil doers” as it reminds me who I work for. This is a proud company….I stay because I want to win this war and not be part of the new Walmarting of the Airlines. I stay because of the wonderful rank and file that will fight this to the end. Perhaps chapter 7 is the cure. Maybe then we could have the knowlege that Steedland didnt get the bonus on making all NWA empoyees part of the new “United Slaves of America”.
Ahmen. What else can be said? MN’s worst company on multiple levels. These fuckers jerk everyone around and THEY KNOW IT. BE SURE TO CONTACT THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREU (BBB) FOR A “REAL” COMPLAINT AGAINST THESE BASTARDS. Down with NorthWORST.
F’ em
Dave
Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future
i used to work for Northworst, the worst airlines or job you could ever have! JOSEPH DENOFRIO is a bastard who works in Chicago AirFreight. So is MIKE LOSURDO, you can find both assholes in chicago. in fact, answer this question. what does wet garbage sound like when it hits the ground? WOP!!!
I had a question about World Perks and the supervisor hung up on me. I didn’t get disconnected – she hung up. Fly Delta – they have a newer fleet
NORtHWEST IS TRULY NORTHWORST,,,,,Chicago is the worst station you could ever work at…..
I am a loyal Continental customer (Platinum Elite). However, there are times when I have to fly NWA because they are cheaper and I still get my Elite miles and upgrades.
But I really dread those time when I have to fly them.
First off, I think they are the only airline still flying DC-9s. Didn’t they go out of style in the 70s?
Secondly, I guess I’m spoiled being a Continental flyer in that I am used to meals, pillows, blankets, and movies in COACH. Continental is by far the best US airline as they know how to treat their customers.
I was just on a NWA morning flight from Newark to Memphis and then connecting to Nashville. I got my First Class Upgrade on the wonderful DC-9. I didn’t eat breakfast at the airport figuring that being in First Class I would surely get a meal. I mean, as bad as NWA is, they can’t snub First Class, can they?
Well holy crap – all we got was a tiny granola bar!!!! That was it!!
And you know the airline sucks when they have to put STANDBY passengers in First Class because the plane is empty. The flight attendants didn’t care – they were like “Sit in first class if you want, wherever you find an empty seat.”
Plus, I find the planes to be dirty most of the time and just unpleasant and uncomfortable.
I strongly encourage anyone to fly Continental. There truly is a BIG difference. While all these other airlines keep taking stuff away from passengers, Continental continues to give customers what they want.
I Was flying phoenix to montreal NWA cancelled my flight in detroit shipped me to toronto without my luggage . On to Montreal I went 2 days later got my bag I had no clothes no nothing for two days yet some how NWA said sorry nothing we can do !!!!!! We can call you when they arrive!
SOME ADVICE NEVER FLY NORTH WEST
Aaron Roach Says:
March 12th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Steenland needs his ass whooped. The Pilots, Skywhores, and IAM need to fuc@#ing rot in hell for doing scab work while the mechanics were out. I am so happy this airline is failing it needs to rot in hell with all of the scabs working there. Fu#k NWA.
==============================================
Mr roach was a 25 yr old snot nose kid who’s dad worked for the company. He had no clue how to work on airplanes and was so green and wet behind the ears it wasnt funny. Now look at him barking out loud like a tough guy. Very funny Aaron.
CUSTOMER SERVICE……EXCUSE ME…..NWA DOESN’T HAVE A CLUE. THEY GRACIOUSLY GIVE OUT A CUSTOMER CARE NUMBER 701-420-6282. WHAT A JOKE….YOU DIAL THAT NUMBER, WHICH IS NOT TOLL FREE AND YOU GET THE MERRY-GO-ROUN…..MEANING, NO MATTER WHICH SELECTION YOU MAKE…AND I TRIED EVERY COMBINATION, YOU CAN NEVER SPEAK TO SOMEONE.
DOES ANYONE HAVE ACTUAL TELEPHONE NUMBERS TO THE COMPANY, IN MINNEAPOLIS OR MINOT, N.D.?
OR A NUMBER FOR ANY OFFICER, INCLUDING BOB SOUKUP, MANAGING DIRECTOR, WORLD PERKS?
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RON
NWA IS THE BEST ANYONE COULD FLY! YEAH YEAH NWA!
YEAH RIGHT! YOU HAVE THE WORST EMPLOYEES WHO REALLY DONT KNOW HOW TO WORK. IAMAW IS THE WORST UNION ANYONE COULD EVER WORK FOR. GERALD BERNSON OF CHICAGO IS THE UNION REP WHOS A FATASSED PIG WHO DONT DO A FUCKING THING FOR HIS MONEY. JUST WATCHING HARDWORKERS FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS OF THE BULLSHIT SYSTEM. GERALD BERNSON AND DANIEL FINK AND STEVE PORTNER ARE ALL IAMAW NINCOMPOOPS. AND THATS THE TRUTH RUTH!!!!
nwa is a airline who doesnt know how to anything rite. i flew on them last year and they lost my luggage. i had my medicine in the bag. i carried enough medicine for the flight but had to take more because of rude nwa flight attendants. they spilled coffee on my cortch and didint even apologised for it. then they spilled tomato juice on me and everyone thoguht i had my period. so embarrassing. i am stil tramautised over what happened.
Northwest is the absolute worst. I’ve been Worldperks for nearly 20 years and have over 190,000 miles currently. I have been trying for months to use said miles to book air travel but 25,000 flights are never available.
So today I called and got a supervisor and she was extremely rude when I said that they never allow their customers to use their miles. We got in a nasty conversation and she hung up. 20 minutes later I get a call saying they are canceling my Worldperks account and my miles are being forfeited.
Now I fully intend on suing their asses for this nonsense and told them so, but before I do so I am trying to find out how to reach someone there to try to settle this matter.
Does anybody have any contact information for Northwest upper management? Phone or email or mailing address? Anything would help.
I too am fed up with NWA, I booked a flight about 2 weeks ago, as I noticed flights going up for the SPECIFIC time I was looking for. So I lost and waited 1 day to late and booked the SPECIFIC times I wanted and needed to make my vacation work. But LO and BEHOLD within a week NWA changed my flights both departure and return flights, making me stay many more hours in the terminals that I had planned or wanted to. I contacted them twice, once on the phone, and talked to a person either from another country or had just move to the US with very limited English speaking skills, and then sent an online message, which I was assured would be answered within 24 hours, but still to no avail. If I were to change my flights, it would cost me considerable money, but for NWA to change my flight times, is quote(out of our hands). To sum this up, I can only say, I can now see why this company is/and will probably will go into bancruptcy is a no-brainer!!
I recently had a crazy experience with Northwest, oh wait I am going through it now. Northwest lost my bag for 3 days and I still don’t have it. To make matters worst, northwest baggage reps continued to tell me that they didn’t know what to do. I called 12 times and continued to talk to the same unhelpful, rude and really non caring representatives. I must say there were about 2 that really helped and the others just lied. How unfortunate that my bag could be lost by an airline and then I am supposed to be the bad guy – why because I wasn’t flying the plane, why because I didn’t load my own bag onto the plane and then take it off myself. I sure hope that I don’t have ever have to fly Northwest ever again in life. They suck, I agree.
NWA totally sucks and DOES engage in shady little dealing in which they advertise flights that they have no intention of keeping. They also hire little trolls who stand around the ticket counter before they open, telling lies to frustrated passengers who want to know why in the hell the ticket desk isnt open when they have a flight booked for that time. NWA will even go so far as to blame online travel discounters like orbitz for mishaps in flight times. They fail to realize that they advertise the same damn crap on their own site, so how could it possibly be the fault of orbitz? Flights on NWA havent gotten any cheaper over the years, and it use to be that when you booked a flight that 2 dollars of your flight ticket was for food and beverage service, so this was NEVER FREE. I find it strange now that NWA expects passengers to pay for a 5 dollar snack box, as if they are in some amusement park where getting ripped off is quite common. NWA is so ghetto that on one of my last flights from memphis, one of the flight attendants was 7 months pregnant, and sitting down in the back of the plane most of the flight. Since when is that healthy, and at what other time has anyone seen a heavily pregnant flight attendant? And to all the losers who want to act like we are all flighting for cheap, why dont you find out the actual cost of fuel for one trip, and you will see that passengers are being RIPPED OFF for the actual cost it takes to fly from point A to point B. Air travel has been around a long time now, and there is no reason why people should still be paying a shit load of money for it. I wonder how it is that KLM and NWA are hooked up with one another when flying KLM internationally is actually quite a nice experience, yet NWA is a complete circus?
They are cheap and of course u git what u pay for. I buy tickets in bangkok or jakarta to use NW to go to Europe with stops in San Fran for less than a SFO-NYC ticket. So just put up with all the crap, disgusting food and rude service, take an mp2, buy a few beers and put up with 14 hrs of misery if u want to save money.
Over the past 10 years, I have flown Northwest religiously, racking up over a million miles. This airline treats me like family, always ready to help. I rely on them like I would a family member and Northwest has never let me down. In ten years, I think my plane has been late maybe 8 times and maybe I’ve had 3 flights cancelled. I simply deal with it. I get to my destination safely and timely – that’s what I pay for.
Hey, we could travel a week by train, travel a week by car, or travel a few months via smelly stage coach… considering how far we’ve come, critics need to just chill out and revel in the CHEAP airline prices – no matter what the service or tardincy.
Also, regarding food, bring your own! How pompous is the person who expects to be waited on during a flight? Bring your own soda pop, it’s a dollar, for pete’s sake!
My daughter is trapped in Pittsburgh because NWA has been canceling flights. She is flying as an unaccopanied minor(shes 10) and they now want her to fly out friday through Detroit which has had the highest cancelled flights in the system. Can anyone offer me help or alternatives to try. Yelling hasn’t done anything except for them telling us its not their fault.
When is the flying public going to wise up! Nit Wits with Airplanes treats their employees worse than they treat their passengers! What do you expect!!
NWA’s behavior out of bankruptcy is emblematic of its history the last 20+ years. Cut all the rank-and-file wages by 40% and then get approval for a reorganization that gives 5% of the company’s value to 30 top managers. NWA management wouldn’t know how to honor a deal if their lives depended on it. The only thing I hate about Minneapolis is having to fly this piece of shit airline more than I want to. I feel bad for the people trying to get by working for this airline when everyone with actual decision-making power in the organization is a shithead/asshole/douchebag.
And let’s not forget about the time they lost my bag from Thanksgiving until January 15th with a five pound cheddar inside it and didn’t even offer an apology.
And to Highdefdeva:
You can’t bring your own pop on the flight anymore, which I’m sure you know with your 1,000,000 frequent flier miles. Probably accrued flying around the country on public relations gigs for NWA.
As for 3 cancelled flights in a million miles, I call bullshit. At three flights a year, I’ve had at least that many in the last five years alone. Flying to Syracuse for Christmas took over 24 hours in 3 consecutive years. Yeah, great fucking airline.
D U M P D O U G
And to make it worse, when they cancel your flight, they don’t follow their own Rule 240 booking rules. My Detroit to STL flight was cancelled. They refused to rebook me on American because one leg of the flight was first class. They lied to my face (well on the phone and repeated emails) saying they did not have to.
First they started with weather being the excuse. Then they said they couldn’t book tickets on American.
Liars and idiots. Never again, no matter how many times I have to change planes on a real airline.
In October of 2006, I won two NWA travel vouchers at a charity auction. Today, I attempted to redeem the vouchers for two tickets from Duluth MN to Kalispell MT. I called the reservation line and found out that my vouchers are no good for the date or destination because all the “W class” seats on the plane have been booked already. The reservation agent actually admitted, “You’re going to have a hard time finding a flight with your vouchers, they give those things out like candy”.
Nothing on the voucher indicates any of the above. Even when I read the fine print it appears that as long as I travel in the US and avoid the blackout dates, I should be able to get a ticket.
I don’t claim to understand the intricacies of the airline business. But, from my perspective, it appears that NWA received the recognition and goodwill associated with making a donation to a good charity by merely donating a worthless piece of paper. Seems fraudulent to me.
My advice to NWA in the future: if you are going to make any similar gestures, please donate peanut M&M’s, I fricken’ love those things. Do not donate worthless vouchers; they’re the kind of thing that reminds me to fly Midwest Express.
My aging father went to LaGuardia airport in NYC yesterday to fly home to New Mexico. It took him two hours and a pretty penny to get to the airport from where he had been staying, but he didn’t complain because that’s just the nature of traveling in NYC. But his flight was canceled, because of “bad weather” although the sun was shining and other airlines were doing a brisk business. NWA attempted to reschedule him for a flight TWO DAYS LATER. Dad asked if there was some way he could fly another carrier, but was told that this was “impossible.” I don’t know if people know, but hotel accommodations in New York City are not exactly cheap. No one offered to help put him up for the night or cover his transportation costs, or anything, really. Instead, the agent then told him that he could get a flight only one day later (this morning) if he would leave out of Newark instead of the much closer LaGuardia. My father, being the gracious old gentleman that he is, said that he would take it but he would like a phone call if this flight was canceled as getting around the city is costly and time consuming. Dad took a cab from the airport, spent the night, and arranged for a shuttle to pick him up and carry him to Newark at four in the morning. All on his dime. This morning he checked his flight status before leaving and everything was go.
He arrived in Newark to find that his flight had been canceled, again. For weather. Without the phone call he asked for. No other airline was canceling their flights and when I checked the flight advisories for the airports he was going to go through, they all said that conditions were fine and that skies were clear. NWA offered to put him on a Friday flight (tomorrow). Again, no offer of hotel vouchers, meals, transportation costs, or anything. This time he complained because he could not miss more work and finally NWA offered to put him on a US Air flight that was also leaving from Newark–with none of these “weather” problems that seem to so plague NWA.
We’re folk of modest means (my father works for the forest service, I am a graduate student, my mother works writing education grants). I know that, in comparison to the thousands of dollars some people have lost, these few hundred dollars that my dad has spent politely doing what NWA told him to do probably seem like a mere pittance… but it actually means something to us. And so does the day of work he’s missing (or the two he would have missed if he had gone on doing what NWA asked him to do). And, even if it is a mere drop in the bucket, doesn’t it indicate something very bad about this company that it is unwilling to compensate its customers even a night’s stay or transportation costs? Or even a meal? Why is it that it took my sweet old father finally becoming exasperated to get the kind of service that he was legitimately entitled to at the beginning? Do we really want to be a society of people where ill will and poor manners get results over graciousness? And what are the moral ramifications of lying about why a flight was canceled? There are no airport delays either in New York or where his connecting flights were going to be. It would seem that the weather excuse was fabricated entirely for the purpose of preventing their liability or financial responsibility. Is there some watchdog organization that can be alerted to this?
Northwest should be ashamed. Neither I nor my family will ever put our few hard earned dollars in its hands, again. And, if I can help it, neither will my friends or their families.
I have a Northwest voucher that they would not apply to my flight reservation, though I entered all the information when I purchased the ticket online, and even though Northwest told me it “went through.” I called back, waited on hold for 15 minutes, got connected to a call center in India, and then the guy hung up on me.
NORTHWEST AIRLINES SUCKS. How they remain in business is a mystery. They treat their customers like shit.
I hate Northwest Airlines. I flew them to Amsterdam from Boston and the flight attendants actually screamed at a passenger for inquiring about the meal servide. I was listening to my ipod pretty loudly and I could still hear her. The lady next to me (from europe) was appalled and stated that the this airline had the crappiest service and she would never fly on them again. I flew them again to Alaska and on the 6 hour flight from MSP to Anchorage the flight attendants ran out of the aircraft before the passengers. They played no movie and made me 5 dollars for a sandwhich with hair in it. I will never fly this airline again. If I were to go back to Alaska I would go with Delta through ATL extremely out of the way. Flying from hartford to detroit, i would rather fly AA through Dallas than put up with the crap NWA puts its passengers through.
My wife and I were forced to use Northwest Airlines due to a schedule conflict.
There was a piece of metal hanging down from the seat in front of me. I mentioned it to one of the stewardesses and nothing was done. 3 hours later I stretched my legs, caught the jagged edge of the metal, scraped my leg, and cut my $240 shoes. I again mentioned it to the stewardess that there is a piece of metal hanging down from the seat in front of me and I cut my leg ( nothing major ) and ruined my shoes.
Scroll down to find out what NWA did on their behalf…..
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I got a free can of Pringles. But not just any Pringles…….They were Sour creme and Onion.
A claim was filed and so far nothing was done.
MY DAUGHTER JUST SAT ON A NWA PLANE IN RDU FOR 4 HOURS. FIRST IT WAS WEATHER, THEN THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH A WING.
PREFLIGHT CHECK WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE BEFORE THEY MADE THEM ALL SIT THERE FOR 4 HOURS.
HER CONNECTING IN MSP WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DELAYED WAITING FOR INBOUND PASSANGERS.
THEY DELAYED THE PLANE 8 MINUTES.
WAY TO GO NW.
YOU DON’T EVEN QUALIFY FOR MY SHIT LIST.
YOU ARE ON THE DRT LIST (DEAD RIGHT THERE—never to be used again under any circumstances).
I WAS ON THE PHONE WITH HER AS SHE WAS TRYING TO GET OFF OF HER FIRST FLIGHT AS HER OMAHA FLIGHT WAS TAKING OFF.
MORE POWER TO THE LOYAL NWA CUSTOMERS. NO-ONE IN MY FAMILY WILL EVER USE THEM AGAIN.
LYING TO YOUR CUSTOMERS IS BAD CARMA. WOULD YOU LIKE A DOCTOR MAKE YOU WAIT FOR LIFE THREATING SURGURY AND THEN LIE TO YOU IN THE PROCESS.
MORAL OF THE STORY — NW NSUCKS
OUTCOME—CHILD TOLD THEM TO GIVE HER HER F*** BAG, CAR RENTED AND HOMEWARD BOUND.@2:10 AM SATURDAY MORNING. july 28, 2007
TO NW AIRLINE EMPLOYEES WHO TELL LITTLE WHITE LIES…WHAT COMES AROUND GOES AROUND. I HOPE YOU LOVE YOUR JOBS. IF YOU EVER NEED EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE I WOULD ADVISE YOU NOT TO TELL THEM YOU WORK FOR NW AIRLINES. dl
I would like everyone to know that the Northwest Airline ( NWA ) site errored and booked the wrong date on my flight. When I complained the employees kept me on hold for 2.5 hours and then did nothing to remedy the problem. If I were a potential passenger on Northwest Airline I would worry for my safety. These folks cannot keep there website running much less a complex aircraft.
None of the major trunk carriers are without a host of gripes from ungrateful passengers. Northwest in my opinion is one of the best airlines I have flown with. Not only is there frequent flyer program the most liberal, but they’ve consistently had one of the best on-time records. I have never lost my luggage, been bumped, or missed a connecting flight when using Northwest. There service is friendly and efficient. I am also an avid fan of the American built DC-9 aircraft which they area a prolific user of. It is still one of the more predictable, easy to maintain and reliable airplanes. A “pilot’s airplane”. Unlike newer variants the older jets recycle cabin air through a bleed air system off the engines. When flying on the newer European built Airbus planes we are breathing stale, dry, germ saturated air. Alot of the problems with cancelled flights particularly during the winter months have to do with the fact that many of NWA’s destinations are to cities in the northern United States where the weather is the worst. In light of this, the fact that they still have a good on-time record is a testimony to the company. The terrorists have made it hell for our major carriers to survive. Don’t put all the blame on struggling airlines. Consider how much more profitable things were prior to 9-11 and give the airlines a break as they reorganize and regain customer service.
All of these problems posted can be found on any major carrier. Most of the people complaining on this blog are Ma and Pa Kettle, once or twice a year traveller. Post some of this on the Northwest board at Flyertalk.com and you’d be laughed off the board or dismissed as the trolls that you are. As for the people complaining that they are held hostage in a hub city, there are ALWAYS choices.
I agree completely with the bad comments about Northwest. I`m sure other people have thought of this, but NWA stands for never will again as far as I`m concerned. 7 hour delay from Boston ( with no prior notice on either the phone or at the airport, I only found out when I checked in,and of course no reason was given ) and a convienent 6 hour delay in Rapid City S.D. for my return flight from Boston.
Of course, they did give ( not even every passenger, of which there about 150, just some ) a whole 10$ food voucher for our troubles.
I will walk from Boston rather than fly NWA again.
When I think about it, it will probably take about the same amount of time as flying that crummy airline. Thanks, Jack.
Oh, the last couple of post seem to be by NWA employees. I’d say if you’re first class you get good service. But NWA flight attendants stopped being friendly sometime in the 1980s. Since then, I’d say these people are miserable. I’d be interested in moving to a different carrier, but not sure which is better. I need NWA overseas but domestic, I’d like to concentrate in Southwest Air, maybe? But basically I’d say NWA employees are generally assholes from the ticket counter to the seat, and off again the same way. As far as the Mama and Pa comment, that sounds just like a NWA anal spincter in contraction.
the stewards are all bitchy queens and and the stewardesses are about 70 years old. Northwest schedules flights with KLM where there is no way for you to make your connection in Europe unless you are an olympic runner.
I remember when they were called Northwest Orient and they were a class airline — now they suck.
I hear you Kay. It seems like the joy left that company. I feel like the customers need government intervention to breakup the cartel like hold airlines have over routes and cities. May be regulation that gave say airline A the Detroit to Nagoya flight M, W, F, and airline B the same route say on T, T, S. In that way it allows for consumer choice, forces competition, and lets the lousy one bite the dust.
FYI, I asked a group of 80 people today if they have flown NWA, and about 80 percent raised their hands, then I asked if of that group if any felt like the service was bad, most left their hands up, then I asked why …
My wife also flew NWA to Asia, and told me a story about the flight attendant. Same stuff I remember flying from Latin America in the 90s on coach. Wow, when you take that culture to business class, that is something.
Last 3 years I went to tokyo from LA and experienced a bad services. After that I tried to avoid flying with NW.
Inevitably, and unfortunately I have to fly with NW again from Minneapolis to Tokyo next couple weeks. Other airlines like ANA or United uses Boing-777 and the seats are kinda comfort and they have a mini TV screen on the back of every seat. NW uses 747 and the seat has a little room between them with no TV behind the seat for you to watch the movie. Imagine you have to sit there for more than 10 hours and the only screen you can watch is to watch it from the bigscreen with others passengers whether you like that movie or not but you have no choice to make. That sucks!
As a NWA employee i so agree with everyone about how badly they are treated..Noone cares about passengers or employee’s..the comment from union members are a joke since the union thinks 9.00 dollars a hour is a fair wage for new employyee’s BUt charges 42.00 a month Blackmail to work in right to work states, My best advice to anyone that flys this airline..do you really think the people loading and caring for that plane care if they are doing job right at 9.00 dollars
Northwest, I hate you. You are a feckless bunch. The silly excuses and complaints issued by some of the NWA employees who, at least, had the guts to post here are tiresome. I get a real kick out the lazy/rude NWA employees with their petty grievences — get over yourselves. No one is complaining about not being able to check an overweight bag or the lack of a meal service on most(all) flights; it’s your obvious incompetence and piss poor attitudes. When considering virtualy any aspect airlines service & operation, the other carriers blow you out of the water. WHY?
funny, the IAMAW union allows for lazy sons of bitches who think they are God’s gift to luggage to sit around and play backgammom and talk shit all the while the flights are delayed. good work GERALD BERNSON of TINLEY PARK, ILLINOIS. who happens to be a member of the infamous lazyassed IAMAW union. fuck you!
I just had my first experience with the thoughtfulness and generosity that is NWA. I had booked a flight to Texas to visit with my brother prior to him leaving for Iraq. Unfortunately, his deployment date has just been moved up and if I want to see him before he is gone for the next year and 1/2 I had to change my flight. Well my original flight was ~$300 to change my flight it was going to cost me ~$1400. This was $1600 for the new flight, $100 exchange fee, minus the original $300 (wasn’t that swell of them). The kicker is the flight that I’m trying to book is only ~$300. So the “changed itinerary” is $1600 but booked new is $300. How does that make ANY SENSE? I told them that it’s actually cheaper to cancel my flight and book a new one and they agreed. When I told them I’d be booking the new one on American Airlines they could care less. “CUSTOMER FIRST MY BUTT!!”
DENNIS BIDLENCIK, TOM ROBBINS, GARY BAUMGARTNER, WILLIAM HOULIGHAN AND BILL MINOUHAN ARE THE ASSHOLES OR SHOULD WE SAY MANAGERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ASSHOLE IN CHICAGO. THEY BREED WHAT THEY FEED TO THESE BITCHES.
I recently flew NW to Europe, and there is a vast difference from their service in the US and to Europe. When I flew the domestic legs of my trip, there were no frills at all on the plane. There were no tv’s, no in flight radio, and they offered snacks which you had to pay for. The only amenity were 2 free beverages.
On the international flight, there were interactive movies in every seat. We were given decent meals and even free alcohol.
I would choose NW again for Europe, but not if I was just flying within the US.
GERALD BERNSON, GERALD CROSS, STEVE PORTNER, DANIEL FINK, JOE DENOFRIO, MIKE LOSURDO, NOLBERTO VELAZQUEZ, KEVIN COURTER, A FEW NAMES NOT TO LOOK UP WHEN YOU ARE IN CHICAGO, THEY WILL PROBABLY BE GOING THROUGH YOUR LUGGAGE AND PILFERING WHATEVER THEY CAN FIND. YES, IT HAPPENS FOLKS. THESE ARE THE NAMES OF THE PEOPLE WHO DO THEM.
I must be a masochist. I’ve been flying Northwest Airlines as far back as I can remember, and each time I fly with them, I’ve been made to feel like crap that they have to transport across the Pacific and back.
Northwest Airlines crew of middle-aged bitter, condescending has-beens are true veterans of treating people like shit. Ditto with their customer and sales representatives. Yet, I continued to fly with them for years until finally switching to Cathay Pacific a few years back. Cathay’s food is much better. Their crew members are much more pleasant to the eyes and are way friendlier than the hags of Northwest. Still, I continued to fly with Northwest primarily because of their Cash plus Miles promo. My plan was to just finish whatever miles I have with them and never fly Northwest again.
This was the plan when I booked my ticket to Vienna. However, due to an oversight that I was entirely responsible for, I made a mistake in my booking that I had only noticed yesterday. I then called Northwest this morning asking for help in rectifying that mistake. I first got this agent who said she was going to make an exception for me, but as luck would have it, our line got disconnected.
I called back and spoke to a different customer service rep on the phone. She first noted that the correction had already been made, but then scrutinized the booking and noticed what the prior agent had done. She said that that agent had made a mistake and shouldn’t have done what she did. She then proceeded to put me on hold for almost thirty minutes, every now and then picking up the phone to tell me to wait for a few minutes more. Finally, she gets back to me and says that they could only make an exception if I paid $250.
Me: Would you please give me a few minutes? I need to check in with my travel companion.
I called my friend, but we couldn’t make a decision. And then this bitch from Northwest proceeded to badger me into making a decision, threatening that if I didn’t make a decision right away that the Supervisor was going to make one for me. Such gall! Yet I proceeded to plead with her…as in PLEAD WITH THE BITCH to give me a little time and all throughout this back and forth, she kept interjecting and even put me on hold in the middle of my sentence. I appealed once more to her to just listen for a second. Finally frustrated, I asked to speak with her Supervisor. Bitch #2 was no different.
Bitch #2: You need to make a decision now or just give me your credit card number.
I do not know what kind of company culture this airline carrier promotes, but as part of the service industry, they certainly didn’t know how to deal with customers. I would’ve paid the damn $250, but after having been treated so poorly, by principle, I decided to take it a step higher.
I called Customer Service, and because I was so upset, I couldn’t even speak straight. I never felt so infuriated by some minion that my voice started to crack up and I actually bawled. BAWLED ON THE PHONE. Yup, that’s what I did.
Fortunately, the human being I spoke with was actually that – A HUMAN BEING. He LISTENED to me and responded nicely, looked into the problem and fixed it.
But now, I have a huge chip on my shoulder and I have taken time out to send emails to company President and VPs. I’ve had it with poor customer service. Why should I have to deal with this again? I am a paying customer. I am a human being. I need to be treated like one.
Anyway, I hope you wouldn’t have to go through what I went through this morning, but should you have a similar experience, I encourage you all to speak up and not put up with bad treatment. This is the only way to change things.
As for all you travelers out there, remember that there are much better airline carriers out there. Don’t give your money to Northwest Airlines unless you have a masochistic streak like me. The company is in dire straits anyway, and that predicament is rightly deserved.
i work for them now and they tell us to treat people like turds.
Hahaha…An American people against their own American Airline industry. What`s the so diffrence between Northwest and other major u.s airlines?
nothing! they are almost same !! Selfish american people (Customers) need also change too! American people loves ME! ME! ME! complain! complain!
Have you try Asian, Japanese, european airlines??
yEs they are truly nice!!!!!!!
Only 128 some-odd complaints against an airline? That must be a record. A larger airline–UAL, AA, etc.–will surely generate vitriolic blogs in the thousands…but I guess it’s hard to see past our own bad experiences.
Myself? I fly quite a bit as a consultant, across most of the airlines over the years; I’ve made top status on two this year already, including NW. I’ve had bad experiences on every airline, including NW. I have friends who work at other airlines as well, friends who can attest to how “horribly” they are treated by “the company.” What’s the common thread here? Airlines, like many other companies, are struggling; sometimes those struggles are vented on their customers and employees. Unfortunate but true.
That said, NW is absolutely stellar to its frequent fliers – far beyond what most other airlines do. International, domestic, puddle-jumpers – they make good on their promises. The other airlines? Not so good; I live in a UAL hub city and refuse to fly them due to their treatment of customers (and employees).
What’s the point? I go out of my way to fly NW these days…sorry for the unpopular sentiment on this board, but that’s my reality over many, many thousands of miles per year.
hey interesting,
this happens to one of many sites that bitch about Northworst, get your head out of your ass. you surely must be a NWA idiot. you might in fact be the president of this failing airline. take that to the bank!
i write to tell you that this airline somehow someway insults all who fly it. from hags that pass as old fat women who serve crappy service aboard there airlines to the faggy guys who act like women. sorry service, sorry airline. just really sorry.
i worked for them for over 15 years, the managers are to blame. they condone harassment and graffiti and tend to relish the excitement of giving people a hard time. chicago is most probably the worst for Northworst. all of the Chicago south-siders think that they work for Al Capone or something. so small thinking. if they really think that, why then are they throwing bags for a living and not in Al Capone’s gang???????
While i certainly respect that the airline industry as a whole is in complete shambles, Nothwest has taken this to extreme. I have flown over 50 flights with them this and wish I could fly anyone else. Living in Detroit means I am screwed and have to take Northworst. The oldest fleet in the country, no pillows, not even a cookie. What’s next, seats are optional? This airline has forgotten what customer service is all about. Hopefully some day this will wake up and realize that people use them not out of choice but out of lack of choice.
flying NWA from Honolulu to Los Angleles is a great time….like sitting in bad traffic with ugly, miscreants called flight attendants. they act like they are doing you a favor by being on the plane. i guess they forget who the passenger is. all i see is a bunch of wrinkled angry old ladies and cuckold men. i have already made other plans to get back to Hawaii and they WILL NOT include NWA!!!!! I HATE YOU!
Joseph Denofrio steals freight from Chicago’s airfreight division. Although there are cameras in this bonded warehouse, he still manages to steal from peole. He wont get into trouble because he married Jaquelin, the manager at the time. Both of them will ruin this altogether ruined airline. Funny, how they turn a blind eye to this idiot of a chief.
Wow, only 135 stories. I thought there would be millions on this site. Everybody else probably just doesn’t know about this site. Here is my crappy northwest story that made me and my wife very angry. We fley back to North Dakota for Christmas 2007. The only airline we can take there is northwest so we were already kinda disappointed. The first flight out of Chicago was fine, but the flight out of Minneapolis was a disaster. We landed just in time in Minneapolis to make our connection. As we were walking to our terminal the NWA lady made an announcement that said if you are on the flight to Bismarck, ND it will be leaving in 5 minutes. My wife and I ran all the way across the terminal to just make it there in that 5 minutes. We were sitting in the back of the plane b/c we had our small dog with us. We sat there for about 35 minutes at the terminal before we finally started backing away. Luckly we ran our asses off to just sit there for 35 minutes. Also the plane was about 90 degrees in the back. There were people shedding clothing in the back like we were in Hawaii on the beach. Once we got in the air we asked the flight attendant why it was so hot in the back of the plane and wondering whey they couldn’t turn the a/c on. Her exact reply to me was “Well this is a very new plane and we just haven’t figured it out yet”. WHAT!!!! Are you kidding me. This was very frustrating and made us decide to never fly NWA again. We will just take the 15 hour drive instead. Our flight back was also very interesting. We got the the airport in Bismarck to fly back to Chicago and as soon as we got there it said “delayed” on the screen. The flight was sposed to take off at 6:55 and the screen said 7:00. So I’m thinking it is only delayed for 5 minutes. We check our bags and the NWA lady says to me “you know your not going to make your connection in Minneapolis right”??? I said what, why not? Isn’t the plane only 5 minutes late? She said no, the plane will not arrive till 10:00pm and take off at 10:30. I said what’s the delay? She said something about air traffic control. So luckly my sister lives in Bismarck so my wife and I just went back to her place to stay for the night and then fly back early the next morning on the first plane out. At 2am I get a call from my dad and he says NWA just called him and told him that the flight in the morning had been cancelled because of mechanical problems. So I spent the next 2 hours trying to find another flight. After talking to my dad we decided it would be best to fly out of Fargo b/c they had a 12:45pm flight that wasn’t full. So my wife and I rented a car and drove to Fargo and flew out of there the next day. I tried contacting the NWA customer care line and they said they couldn’t reemberse me at all since the delay was due to weather. Easy decision people. Don’t ever fly NWA ever again. It’s as easy as that. I know I never will b/c you never know what your going to get. You might make it and you might not, and if you don’t make it don’t expect anything from NWA as far as helping you out.
I’ve been flying NWA for about 15 years, the last 3 as a platinum member. I used to fly American but switched when I moved hub cities. I am just about at the million mile mark, most of which I have earned in the last 4 years. These days I mainly fly transatlantic. I also frequent British Airways where I am about to join the ranks of their gold flyers. Other airlines in my repertoire include all of the US majors, SIngapore, KLM, Iberia, Aitalia, and China.
There have been a few bumps along the way with NWA, but honestly I have to say my overall experience has been consistently good. Their transatlantic fleet of a330s are some of the best equipped planes around. I prefer them over the triple 777s unless I am flying First on BA or SIngapore. I don’t typically eat on US domestic flights, so the absence of food does not bother me. I think airlines should have started offering good pay-food options in Economy years ago rather than the dry sandwich and mealy apple. The food and wine offered in Business is actually pretty good, especially on international flights. Some meals have rivaled those from good restaurants. On time performance with NWA is always fantastic in my opinion. I can count the number of serious delays over 15 years on…well, two hands maybe. Their Web site is the industry, period.
I would describe the service on NWA as adequate but not exceptional. The one consistent opportunity I see is the employees could be more friendly and helpful. They do well following a script, but I notice they struggle with unusual or complicated requests, and I frequently encounter employees that don’t seem approachable. Their first answer to an offbeat question is usually ‘no’ or they just avoid getting too close to a customer they sense might ask for something out of the ordinary. Flight attendants also have a habit of discussing their tough customer or employer situations very loudly which I think is highly unprofessional. I understand the airline – employee relationship has been strained over a variety of issues, but it really creates an awkward and unpleasant environment for the customer when that kind of talk goes on in front of them. Service scores would really soar in my book if the front line service people got a touch more “human” with the customer.
I have a great amount of respect for the team at NWA and the company and hope they can work out their problems together while they still have a chance. NWA is in reach of achieving world class status. They just need to put a little more effort into the details. More industry consolidation is coming and NWA is probably not big enough to survive long term. As a person who started life in the home town, the sentimental side of me would like to see them go out on a high note. As a long time customer, I am generally pleased with the airline and never hesitate in recommending them.
Mike Losurdo is a chief in Chicago, O’hare. works in airfrieght. you can find him sleeping from 330 am to about 700 when he punches out to go home. he makes everyone work so hard, but he gets his tires flattened on his car about every other week. wow what a piece of work he is,,,all the money he makes and he still cant speak decent english! he has a handful of his asskissers,,,like JOE DALKE and HERMAN MOORE. He’s Moore of a piece of shit than a worker and he scabbed on every strike there ever was with NWA….oh well, ORD has its losers and Losurdo(pe) tops them all!!!!
Okay, I’m sitting on a Northwest flight right now as I type. I started my flight today in Tallahasse, got to Memphis in just enough time to make my connection only to find out that the plane LEFT EARLY! When does that happen? Well about 20 passengers were in the same boat and we all jammed onto another flight to Minneapolis. Now we’re delayed for an hour while they are waiting for a “paper receipt from the fuel truck” to do their calculations. This is the most poorly managed and operated airline I’ve ever seen. If I ran my business like this I’d have to close the doors in a month, please tell me the government doesn’t help this abortion stay afloat!
I booked an international flight with this carrier 4 months in advance. My ticket costed $1945. Due to medical conditions I could not travel on the date scheduled. After 2 months am ready to travel since my doctor has said it is okay. Now I can not travel because the tickets right now are costing $1292. According to the customer service, I would have to travel on a flight of the same amount or more. I tried to cancel my flight with them since when I booked the ticket it said it was refundable. After speaking with customer service, I was told the ticket is refundable within 24 hrs which were long expired.
Now am being forced to buy another ticket with a different carrier at a much cheaper rate so that I can travel.
It is very unfair that this bogus airline has made profit from my money and I still can not travel on their cheaper flights yet I paid more. I wish there is a lawyer out there who can contact me and we can sue them. NWA is the biggest scam ever.
All passengers shall do what their told and to stay out of our way. I could careless about your mileage: if you only knew how dirty the seats are. We little people use them as fart cushions when we “clean the plain” between flights. Those gray or blue blankets that are left out are great to clean the lavs. I even know this guy who checks every meal cart for Kosher meals- he’s an arab or something. He doesn’t do anything reel bad, except switch the meats around.
look at #142,i believe it too….this idiot cant spell and he’s most likely a ramp rat, better known as a no brain bagmonkey….its funny to see that you see 65 year old men/boys slinging bags and going thru mail and stealing your underwear. its been known in that business that they sit around in the ready room sleeping and playing backgammon. you can blame management for the good behaviour of these assmonkeys. NWA you get what you deserve, IAMAW idiots that kiss managements asses. theres no real union, just a bunch of asskissers who act like union reps but cant even grow a pair. IAMAW=no brain idiots.
NWA GIVE CHICKEN IN VGML LABELLED TRAY: POORLY MANAGED AIRLINE,
My first ever journey with NWA came out to be a bitter experience. Let
me just narrate the story in short.
I started from Seoul to Detroit by NWA flight on 18th of Feb 2008. the
ticket was booked few weeks in advance with all iterinary and meal
preferences confirmed. After flight took off Incheon airport, the flight
attendant came with polite smile and told me your meal is confirmed. And
she wished me a good flight. But to my wonder when actual food came with
VGML label and my name on tray, what i found inside the tray there was
full bowl of Chicken which was later confirmed by same attendant. though
the lable was confirming food to be VGML. Attendant said she doesn;t
have any replacement for this, however she tried to help me with food
from business class which again was not vegetarian. My journey was 15
hours long and such careless treatment and that too my first ever
journey with NWA, i got shocked. To put more salt on my wound she
offered me vouchers of 10$ , so that I can go and eat after 15 hours of
flight, till then I was expected to remain starved.
With this experience I have decided never to travel by NWA again in my
life.(i Normally avoid North America based airlines in general-as many
of them are bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy)
I often use European , gulf or other wonderful Asian airlines like
SIA, cathay,Asiana.
It made me feel that these north American based airlines are just
pathetic as I heard in terms of customer service and poor administration
. Even when I demanded feedback form onboard she advised me to go and
check website to login my comments on nwa.com
Vegetarians please be-aware that you are not in good hands if you ever
want to travel by NWA for long haul flights. Other observations I made
in terms of dirty restrooms, aged attendants ,dirty covers on sheet,
limited food, limited drinks(that too if you pay separate for drinks),
broken headphones. of course the leased smiles on the faces were bit of
air in desert.
I wish this type of airline do wonderful business by ripping off their
customers who has little or no respect for vegetarians.
Would you like to travel by NWA after reading my terrible experience.
Good bye NWA, you don;t get my business, I would take normal Asian or
European airlines who treat me as normal passenger with respect. I
travel 5 times across the globe for which NWA don;t get any share out of
my budget.
Finally after all the troubles and miserable journey-after 2 weeks I got
a reply from their customer service who said this concern has been
forwarded to director food service. In that email agent promised me to
send vouchers worth one hundred dollar for future travel ( but for me no
use, since I would never venture into NWA again)
NWA is a big joke specially when you fly over different continents.
Please steer clear from it, else be prepared tol loose your peace of
mind plus you will starve. probably you might get some vouchers as
compensation of your starvation and sugar coated lip service from their
customer service agents.
I feel NWA and similar airlines cannot be competent and hence their
business sucks. It makes them one of worst airline to fly .
Vegetarians just be alert that they would call your meal preferences as
very special dietary need, as you don’t eat dead animals ( however you
may be vegetarian from your birth which is nothing special, as there are
over 500million vegetarians are on this planet). This airline is hardly
educated enough to even respect vegetarian customers because they don’t
need their business, so they practically don’t deserve our business.
Just avoid NWA by all means if you do not want to get pissed off. For
same price you can fly much better airline with lot more respect and
dignity.
We was denied to board a flight to Hawaii just because we checked in too late at the gate even though they still allowed other passengers in. Their employee was also very rude. We’ve not flown NWA since and don’t really care what is happening to them. As far as I know, NWA DOES NOT EXIST. I hope they see my comment.
NWA treats their customers like they’re straight outta compton. I feel violated. They canceled my flight home then booked me on an alternate flight on American Airlines to get me there 6 hours later than I would have gotten in originally (better than nothing I suppose, but still crappy). On my own I came up with a way to get home 2 1/2 hours earlier than their plan so I did it (same airlines, just different times – so whay couldn’t they do this for me to begin with?!) but my checked bag didn’t make it with me. When I asked AA before I got on my flight home if my bag would make it they said “you’ll know when you get there” which I suspected meant no but I was hopeful anyway. So I called NWA to complain they blamed AA for the bag not getting there and said it was their responsibility since it was their flight (understandable, right?) so I call AA and they tell me they never got the bag from NWA and don’t know where it is! When I called NWA’s ‘customer care’ (yeah right, I bet they get a good laugh about that name) to complain about the whole proces (flight cancellation, late getting home, lost bag, etc.) they offered me a $75 voucher and when I told them my time was worth more than that they said “well you can take that or nothing if you want, it’s up to you, we are only responsible for getting you to your destination, not keeping you on-schedule (she actually said this!), so we are offering you this as a courtesy.” Well thank you very little! I told her that was a slap to the face and that my time was worth more than that and she said that they weren’t placing a value on my time or experience (seemed like they were to me). Long story short – Northwest Airlines SUCKS!
Bill Minoughan is a service manager at NWA in Bradenton, Fla. He drives his Rolls-Royce all over the place drunk. with no regard to anyone, he tends to layoff people at the shifts end and he laughs at your face when doing so. i think eventually he will get caught with a DUI, as he is being watched as we speak. Sorry, Bill, this wont be your first DUI. Irish Bastard!!!
I have to fly this damn airline again today … they are the most unfriendly group of people to ever work with. I’ve never seen the like in a non-union company. Any guess why NWA sucks?!?
Well, now this pile of shit airline is going to charge for the 2nd bag that is checked.
I know that Delta is now much better, but I hope the merge goes through. NWA does not deserve to be in business given that they do not care about their customers at all. Where do they think thier paychecks come from???
its not NWA’s fault, but blame the managers that manage that shitty company. the managers are treated like shit, so they pass it on to the employees, etc.etc. So the major factor is that the customers feel the brunt of the abuse. Managers expect more and more but they dont teach the chief’s how to treat people with dignity and honesty. Ever wonder why they have so many lawsuits going on for discrimination? flush NWA down the fucking toilet!
Just to keep it going yes nwa still sucks maybe even harder today than ever they lost my bag today which is par for the course
NWA is now Delta. Congratulations Steeland and Anderson. Taking two failing airlines and combining them is really going to make a success. I think not.
I seriously HATE this airline. Is it worth writing them a letter?
Lets see.
(1) Flight cancelled. No phone call or email DESPITE signing up for their “alert”. 7:00 am flight mind-you.
(2) Flight 4 hours delayed. No pilot. We were “stuck” in the Mpls airport mind you. HUB OF F’ING NWA. I got home at 4:00 am.
(3) Website SUCKS.
(4) Travel vouchers issues and impossible to use. (You have to not use the first 3 numbers and not the last 1 number)
(5) Customer service. Transferred 4 times to someone who couldn’t speak ENGLISH and I could hardly hear them!!!
i understand what most of you are saying , but think about it when you try to be as pleasant as possible to the public the majority of them treat us like a piece of crap . having no respect for authority, failing to realize that god forbid something dramatic was to happen to the aircraft WE would be the ones to get you out hopefully in one piece if you aren’t allready dead. us to for that matter .theres more to our job than popping a can of pepsi and doing the demo. after a while, after doing everything in our power to make you happy alot of us get fed up with being treated like crap. and making a minimum wage salary on top of it.But we tolerate it only for the simple facts . that we do get multiple days off unlike a 9-5 job and yes we do see the world on a very strict budget. and more than likely we’ll never see you again anyway.With nasty attitudes from the public and taking crap from the company and constant pay cuts i’m supprised its not worse. its not just NWA its most airlines today due to lack of respect and of coarse the economy. we are people like you. not robots/slaves or maids.and remember ALWAYS BE NICE TO YOUR FLIGHT ATTENDANTS YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING OR CAPABLE OF DOING TO YOUR FOOD OR BEVERAGE IN THE GALLEY BEHIND CLOSED CURTAINS!!!!! HAPPY FLYING
These worthless pieces of garbage LIED tonight saying they cancelled a flight due to WEATHER, not the five hour mechanical delay, so they did not have to compensate passengers. Hotel vouchers were not even provided. And these stupid fucks wonder why their company is failing? Eat shit and die in a fiery plane crash, Northwest.
Be careful, because the money might disappear. I couldn’t use it for an extensive trip to Europe that I had a travel agent plan for me.
Also, since a family member now works for this rat outfit and I can travel non revenue, I can’t get a refund. Maybe they confiscate it and split the money between Doug Steenland and Richard Anderson to add to the millions they have ripped off from the company.
I have a gift of money in the Gift Registry. Be careful, because the money might disappear. I couldn’t use it for an extensive trip to Europe that I had a travel agent plan for me.
Also, since a family member now works for this rat outfit and I can travel non revenue, I can’t get a refund. Maybe they confiscate it and split the money between Doug Steenland and Richard Anderson to add to the millions they have ripped off from the company.
I hope Southwest Airlines can work their way into the Mpls/St. Paul market
NWA is crazy! Got to the airport this morning to put my daughter on a flight and there were no agents at the ticket counter. It was 30 minutes before departure but unforseen circumstances prevented us from arriving sooner. We could not get any one to help us. Because we were unable to get assistance, the flight left and we had to stand around waiting on assistance for another flight. When someone finally arrived at the counter, she told us that we had to pay an additional $740 to be put on another flight! We had to take it because we almost had no options. How sad is that! We had to pay 3 times over for the original ticket which cost $379.
My first and last time flying NWA!
I purchased a ticket on friday. On sunday i saw the same ticket for $130 less on the same website (www.nwa.com). I emailed them to get the lower ticket price. this is what they told me:
since i purchased more than 24 hours ago, they will penalized $100 for making reservation changes(i do not want to make reservation changes, it’s the same flight but cheaper. i want price adjustment. but they donot do that). anyway, net-net i will get $30 back in VOUCHER. Yeah voucher, not refund. that is if i am willing to talk with the ticket managment or something like that. $30 in voucher and talk to the nwa customer service? gush.. not worth it.
so watch out when you buy your ticket from nwa.com. or better, buy from other airlines. that’s what i will do next time.
i learned this lesson first hand. i hope you donot have to go through my experience with nwa ticket price tricks. i guess one thing i can do is to ask for lots and lots and lots of beverages and pretzels during my flights hehehe..
We had a gate agent last night tell us that our plane (of course, delayed because its radar system broke – OLD PLANES!) might be cancelled because of the maintenance problem. People asked about what would be done if that happened, and she said, “To be honest, because there’s a thunderstorm in the area, Northwest will probably cancel it citing weather as the problem, and you won’t be put up in hotels by the airline. Keep your fingers crossed that they can fix the problem because otherwise, you’ll be paying for a hotel.” She was very forthright, which I appreciated, but she also looked exhausted and frazzled. Layoffs had everyone working 2 gates that night – at Detroit, no less, one of their hubs! She kept darting back and forth between ours and another gate, trying to keep everyone informed. She had a hell of a time doing that, too, because maintenance never updated her with the status of the repair – they just kept bumping back the departure time on the information screen behind her.
I felt bad for her, even though she came off as surly, you could tell it wasn’t personality-related or rudeness but simply because she’d had a hell of a bad day because of her employer. I’m never rude to attendants or gate personnel because I really feel for them. I’m glad Northwest employees have started explaining that, as a human being, they’d love to help, but their hands are tied by the airline. It’s at least honest. More than United does. Instead of spiking food and drink (shame on you, poster 154!), just reach out and tell customers why you’re doing what you’re doing. All customers in that position want is an admission that they’re being treated unfairly. If you know Northwest is being unfair, admit it, and you’ll have us customers on your side.
It absolutely enrages me that, had our flight been cancelled (it wasn’t) due to the radar problem, we still would have been shuffled off into the weather-related arena with no compensation or hotel vouchers.
Northwest seems pretty keen on opportunistically cancelling flights to save them money. Beware if your flight is scheduled during thunderstorms because you’re totally out of luck.
Those DC-9s are loud as hell, too, and shaky feeling. I know that “with regular maintenance,” they’re 100% safe to fly in, but a) I doubt that maintenance is strictly kept up with and b) there’s just something off-putting about flying in an aircraft built in the early 70s.
I get the impression Northwest’s management made some missteps several years back and is too bullheaded to admit their mistakes. I hate flying Northwest. They’re cheap, but that’s no reason to keep flying them. Take a stand with your dollars.
I freaking hate Northwest. I was originally scheduled for a flight from Las Vegas to Boston on US Airways (another stellar airline). US Airways customer service amazingly booked us on a flight to Detroit later that night with a Northwest connection to Boston. I thought I’d be tired, but hey usually people are with all night flights.
I wish tiredness was the least of my issues. Went to the NWA ticket booth. Naturally they had no record of the arrangement. (Please note at this point our flight was about to leave in an hour and a half and we had yet to even find our reservation). To make a long story short, as I started freaking out (and flipping out for good reason), the ticket counter started to get short with me. The ticket agent put the entire blame on US Air (turns out that it was her fault, but hey whatever).
At this point boarding was literally in 10 minutes, and thanks to Northwest’s amazingly understanding customer service, my entire party was flagged for SSSS. Gotta love it. I’ve never had to run so fast for a flight in my life. Barely made it to the gate in time.
Never again, NWA. I’m only flying JetBlue, Southwest or (if I have to) Delta from now on.
I was vebally abused by a stewardess for simply asking for a seat belt extension. I was sitting in exit row. I have flown thousands of times due to my business always sit in exit row. Being 6’7″, I need the leg room. Sometimes I have to pay extra, but that is fine. NEVER once had I been harrased about asking for a seat belt extension while in exit row. She said CC regulations, etc etc. When I aked when did the rules change as I have never been questioned before, she went balistic. She even called some retarded customer service person who started yelling and threatening me from severl seats away. What cowards. I finally for my original seat belt on somehow..
I complained and all I got was 750 free airmiles. Which gets you jack. Apologies seemed template style..
Ihope NWA changes its policy
Just a comment to post #162: I work as a flight attendant for NWA. I can tell you in all honesty, we are NOT allowed, PER FAA REGULATIONS, to have anyone who requires a seat belt extender to sit in the exit row. The flight crews that have let you get away with this in the past were wrong to have let you sit there with an extender. I am sorry you feel you were verbally abused, but FAA regulations do not allow seat belt extenders in the exit row.
1/ Military-educated (for politeness) underpaid crew
2/ Sub-par customer service
3/ Unredeemable compensation vouchers
4/ Lowest quality food I ever had on a plane
5/ Anything extra is paying
I hope the current kerosene price will put them in bankruptcy so bad that a real airplane company will acquire them and clean the mess once and for all.
J.
I am a CURRENT NW employee and I tell ya’ our Customer Service Agent’s are HORRIBLE! Try flying on “STANDBY” and see how HORRIBLE they treat their OWN employees, yet how HORRIBLE they treat the customers. Don’t get me wrong, not all NW employees are this horrible, but those NW employees that have to service your seats, baggage, flights will be HORRIBLE.
just a comment for poster 160 (julie). alot of us have tried reaching out to passengers. but for most of them it doesn’t seem to work. For the majority of the flying public NOT ALL BUT most… its all about them they could care less about what the company is doing to their employees. all we ask for is to be treated with respect, treated like a human being if not from the company from you (the passenger )if you respect us will respect you.
its about time, NWA to lay off 2,500 people. maybe now the service may actually get better! we will see some changes, there has to be! eventually, this toilet with wings will flush away into nothingness…..
It’s funny that they won’t let someone needing a seatbelt extender sit in the exit row — on my flight they let someone who needed a CANE sit there (and they left it in plain sight…) I mean, come on, at least pretend you care about safety. And, don’t give me a dirty look when I point out that the person has a cane. And, even better, don’t just put it in the overhead bin and say, ‘it’s OK’.
[…] at the end of our trip I exited the ‘Magical Express’ and walked into line for Northwest Airlines to check luggage with my family.’ Not ONE person made it through the process without a […]
The FAA is right, if you need a seat belt extender then you are a “person of size” and probably would get wedged tight in the small exit door. Someone with a cane? That would be a crew call, if they didn’t feel they could get the door open or whatever it is also THEIR lives potentially on the line too.
As far as NWA in general, I have been flying them forever (I live near Detroit so not much choice in who to fly with). I have had great flights and I have had dismal flights but I have found the same on other carriers. Judging by the almost always full flights these days the few posters who “will never fly NWA again” are in a minority.
For the FA’s who have posted here, yes generally speaking when I am nice or decent to you, you return that attitude to me.
Is this 700 billon dollar bailout good for either Obama or McCains presidential chances ?
I hope the combined Northwest & Delta merger flops and both go out of business for good!
Why Northwest sucks:
1) horrible service
2) onerous reticketing fees
3) rude customer service agents
4) rude FA’s
5) fees for even the first checked bag?
6) btw. weren’t all these crappy fees due to high fuel prices? fuel is a lot cheaper now, and the crappy fees remain
Last night my wife called Northwest Airlines to book reservations for herself and me from Portland to Dallas. She wanted to apply the value of a $750 ticket she hadn’t used in January for a flight from Portland to China when the huge winter storms had closed many Chinese airports. Last night she was told that if she wanted to use the credit balance from the old ticket she’d have to book a flight to Dallas that cost at least as much as her flight to China plus pay an extra $200 for the change. The current cost to fly coach from Portland to Dallas was $250 for the flight we wanted. Soooooo, she was being forced to book a first class flight (to get a ticket expensive enough) which was going to be $890. That meant she’d have to use the $750 credit + $200 + $140 for a total of $1,090. Or to put it another way, Northwest Airlines wanted $340 more (plus the loss of her unused credit) than if we just booked the $250 flight without all the hassle. She’s now going to lose the credit because we have no travel plans that accomodate Northwest’s rediculous fare rules. She was furious. I was stunned because I’ve never had a problem like this with Delta or Lufthansa. I asked my comptroller this morning to give me the amount my company has spent with Northwest Airlines so far this year. It’s slightly over $160,000. I just sent out a notice that effective immediately no employee is allowed to take a Northwest flight. Period. I did the same thing years ago with American Airlines and they have missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of ticket sales because they screwed my parents out of $800 by demanding they pay more to fly my mother home early for emergency surgery. The moral of this story? Drive if you possibly can or use the train and don’t use Northwest if you have to fly.
I joined Northwest Airlines World Club in the 70’s as a life member. Now they announced termination of all life memberships. Can they do that legally???
Tom Mueller
The best thing for NWA is to be assumed by Delta and lose the NWA name all together. Steenland needs to go flip burgers somewhere. I was to fly from COS to MSP for a 1 day (overnight trip). My flight cancelled when we were at the gate and the agents instructed us to call NWA reservations to be rebooked on another airline. When people called, they were transferred to a recording that says our calls could not be taken at this time…..and it hung up! So, after 2 hours in line, all flights had left COS for the evening and I was screwed. Why go the next day for 2 hours? Thanks Northwest for ruining my only time to spend with my family over Christmas. Doug Steenland……you really need to find something different. You have run NWA into the ground.
E mail the CEO directly and let him know how he has run NWA into the groud.
doug.steenland@nwa.com
ON 12/30/2008 AT THE ALBUQUERQUE AIRPORT NORTHWEST AIRLINES TERMINAL I PLACED AN UNACOMPANIED MINOR ON FLIGHT 1484,FINAL DESTINATION OSLO,NORWAY. THE TICKET AGENTS WERE VERY HELPFUL,KIND,FRIENDLY,AND EFFICIENT.I WANT TO THANK ALL THE NWA STAFF FOR MAKING IT EASY TO GET THRU THE RED TAPE. SPECIAL THANKS TO IRMA FAULKNER AND DANIEL LARA FOR ALL THE EXTRA CARE AND EFFORT THEY SHOWED ON OUR BEHALF. THANKS AGAIN
Hey Amfanuts! How did that AMFA work out for you dummies? Non-employees read this message board and probably don’t know that you AMFA boys brought this chit on yourselves. Why don’t you tell everyone that you were stupid for leaving the IAMAW for AMFA and that your jobs all went overseas by your own choice? Why don’t you tell the customers that you, the mechanics, voted in 2001 on a contract that allowed FARM OUTS of your work to go overseas? You bunch of chicken chits! You like everyone else made a choice. A free choice! Most of you were also George W Bush voters…..another display of your mental prowess! Yep, I guess for you folks AMFA was the answer…..stupid is as stupid does and you boys were stupid! Oh yeah I almost forgot to remind you dummies that you gave AMFA a STRIKE vote without a contract vote months before your AMFA Leadership, MacFarlane, Young and Matthews dicktated that you would strike! Please look in the mirror before you post your dribble about how bad NWA treated you. Cheers!
i just flew NWA, not by choice but because the flight iwth Delta cancelled. what horrible service! the Flight attnedants are downright rude, fat and ugly! they deserve each other, next time I’ll just take a tramp steamer to where i have to go!
It’s funny how the people who complain about “missing” pilots, mechanical delays and so on have NO idea how an airline works. Sometimes you have to sit on a runway if theres a mechanical or if they have to figure out loads and weight and balance. This stuff happens sometimes after you leave the gate.
Did you ever think maybe the pilot got sick and they need to call out another reserve? Or maybe the incoming crew was delayed due to weather and can no longer work because its past 14 hours of duty time because of other delays out of their hands? Stop assuming things and think pilots or flight attendants are just being lazy or don’t care. They need to follow strict guidelines in order to keep you safe, not to mention, are looked after by the FAA.
Does you car even need to get fixed? Planes need matinence too. It IS a machine. Things happen when you don’t expect it. Like a car.
ma
Now some of it may be poor customer service but before you jump to conclusions, maybe you should figure out the actual story before assuming things. I do not work with NWA but as a flight attendant with another carrier and its annoying how people jump to conclusions when they have no idea how things work.
I hate nwa!!! I am suppose to permanently move from NC to CA. I had to pack my whole life into two checkable luggages and two carry-ons. I was afraid that they might be overweight so I called customer service to see if there were any special moving discounts or anything that might help me and they told me that I should check a third bag for $125. I told the customer service lady that I wasn’t sure if they were even overweight and that I didn’t want to pay that much for a third bag. Then this rude pompas b****h said verbadem “If you can’t afford the third bag, you might as well ship it via Fedex or UPS.” I was so shocked and outraged by this I couldn’t even think of anything to say and hung up the phone. How anyone could be that rude and disrespectful to a customer is beyond me!
We just had the worst experience with a ticket agent with NWA. I have flown over a hundred times easy, and I cannot believe how we were treated on 4/2/09 at the Grand Rapids MI airport. After waiting in line for 30 minutes to get to the ticketing display, which would not complete my entry, the ticking agent told me that we were too late to make the flight. I ask her to help us get on or get us on another flight. She told me and my wife that we could not get on any other flight either today or tomorrow and we could not even go on stand by. I told her that we needed to be in Florida by tomorrow night and she still told us it could not happen and that it was our own fault for being late (the plane was still 30 minutes from departure at a small airport). So I asked her if I could get my money back (I could not think of what else to say, other than you are kidding, right?) Then she told me, No!. As she was walking away, she said that I bought low priced ticket online and that I should take it up with them. Then she started working with somebody else.
Well, we walked away as I was so angry, I was afraid of what I was going to say next. Next we are standing outside thinking that we just got ripped off by NWA. So, after cooling off for 5 minutes, we went back in and worked with another ticket agent. She was able to find us a new flight and we took off to Florida two hours later. The irony is that we almost missed our trip, because we were so bad because we showed up so late (one hour before departure time), and we were delayed at both connections, one hour at the first and two hours at the second. Plus NWA lost my bag and had to deliver it several hours later. We were delayed on both flights on the way home, again by hours each time. What a double standard!
With so many layoffs, how do customer service people like our NWA ticket agent keep getting a paycheck? How do big companies keep paying employees to chase away customers? How can NWA treat their customers like dirt and expect repeat business?
Agreed – I posted my own issue’s here
http://breakfastgravy.blogspot.com/2009/04/northwest-airlines-can-eat-my-poop.html
check this story-long but you get it fuck the NWA
I bought a round trip ticket from Boston MA through Minneapolis to Cedar Rapids Iowa for May 1st, returning May 3rd. I left a bag with a pair of dress shoes on the flight to Minneapolis. Upon realizing this in Iowa, I called and was informed that they could not send the shoes to me, I would have to pick them up at the airport within 5 days or they would be donated to charity. Please. I cannot afford to fly somewhere to get my items back, I would be glad to pay for shipping especially for something worth at least $100. Luckily, I would be back there soon. Upon Returning, I realized that I had accidentally bought a ticket for May 10th instead of the 3rd. I called and was informed that the charge to switch the flight was $!50, so I bought a cheaper seat instead, planning to cancel the return trip and save some money. When I arrived in Minneapolis for the shoes, I was informed that they were not there and the manager told me that “Another service” empties the planes of all lost items and insinuated that “they” could still have them- basically theft. This is no way to run a lost and found. Adding insult to injury, I found that I could not cancel my return trip even a week before. I was offered to have the same trip in credit for a whole year, but that’s assuming I’d be back in Cedar Rapids and willing to pay the $!50 charge plus the difference if the flight was more expensive, and very restrictive because I can only fly that route. Really Northwest? FLIGHTS ARE $150! If the switch charge is as much as a new flight, there is really no point. Also, when trying to cancel my flight online, I was unable to use my credit card number to find the reservation which really worries me. A phone representative with access to the database was also unable to locate it. Needless to say, I feel cheated and robbed by Northwest’s policies and actions and will never fly it again. I know I am not that frequent of a flyer, but businesses that turn away people who have spent $900 in these tough economic times will not last.
lost/stolen? dress shoes (not even mine) were $125
unused/unusable ticket (I will be taking finals so I cant be in Iowa)- $150
fee if I ever wanted to use this ticket- another $150
service- just frustrating
when i hear about airlines going down and failing, im all for the free market crushing this piece of shit yupp let the better airlines do their thing
Northwest Airlines sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The management should all be fired!!!!!!!!!!
Dear former Northwest Visa card folks.
If you, like me, have been forced to get the “great” Delta American Express card, please join me in telling Delta and Northwest that this care really sucks.
Since I started trying to use it and get all the promised miles, I have been refused by 7 merchants. What crap.
Let’s all tell Delta that we want a Delta Visa card.
Thanks,
Doug
[…] Other unsatisfied customers […]
NWA sucks!!!! I recently took a NWA flight where the takeoff aborted midaway down the runway!!! So we sat….and took the same plane after they fixed it and were hours late arriving! Then when waiting for luggage…it never came off the baggage carrosel. And, no’one from NWA came to tell us why not! Eventuallly, several passengers started to complain to their baggage dept….and it ended up that our bags were misloaded onto another flight at our departure city, and went somewhere else! What a joke! No apologies…..nothing!! So WE all had to fill out the missing bag forms, even though they misloaded the bags…the whole planeload! Our bags arrived 10 hours later with a $25.00 voucher on your next round trip! After we paid bag fees to travel with them. NWA is pathetic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lou Cervone
4731 Dierker Road
Columbus, Ohio 43220
614-457-6763
July 6, 2009
Senator George V. Voinovich
524 Hart Senate office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Re: Delta / NWA flight 2550 of June 25, 2009
MFS to CMH ticket number 006768532654
Conf. number 4M6SYJ
Dear Senator Voinovich:
I would like to share with you an incident of service that I believe is more than simply poor service beyond Delta / Northwest’s obligation under the general Contract of Carriage section 240, B, and B3, but one of endangering the general public.
The above flight from Memphis was diverted from Columbus, Ohio to Dayton due to very bad weather conditions. We sat on the tarmac for over 3 hours in an attempt to complete our flight to Columbus, Ohio. At approximately 1:30 AM, it was determined the window to Columbus was closed or the flight crew ran out of hours resulting in the aircraft being parked at a gate.
We were told by the flight attendant that other arrangements were being made to transport the passengers to Columbus via bus.
However, upon departing the aircraft the gate agent told us to rent a car and drive to Columbus. She indicated Delta / NWA had done all they were going to do. NWA stranded us 90 miles away from our contracted destination.
I have to take exception to this action as an issue of public safety and not one of contractual obligation and service:
1. What about the elderly and under age passengers who do not have a driver’s license and therefore, cannot rent a car?
2. What about those under 25 who the car rental companies will not rent a car to?
3. What about those without a credit card?
4. What about those who have a problem driving at night attempting to navigate from a strange city at 3:00 AM?
5. What about mothers with children who, by Ohio law, must have a child car seat that the rental companies do not provide?
6. What about those with children needing diapers, medicine, or food abandoned at a closed airport?
All the above were placed a great personal risk as Delta / NWA refused to provide transportation or other arrangements for the passengers under their care.
I believe their actions to be reprehensible regarding public safety and I urge you to introduce or support, not a passenger bill of rights, but a passenger safety bill.
Sincerely,
Lou Cervone
Cc: FAA
Hello I am a totally blind NWA res agent. In 2007 I was fired for taking too much sick time. I’ll have you know that I had doctor’s notes and ER documents to back up my issues. Last month I lost a famly member after a long ilness and I have been asking NWA for personal mental health leave. They told me that If I left the phones, I’d be possibly fired again. At this point, I really don’t give a shit about lost baggage etc when I can’t even get my health taken care of. I even had the fire dept check me for a possible hart attac and management won’t let me off.
i agree with cindy!
I’m so angry at NWA. I didn’t even get a chance to browse about how others feel. NWA left a bad taste in my mouth. I bought three tickets for $200 each leaving sacramento to New York. I needed to reschedule my flights and the rescheduling fee were $150 for each ticket. I was like WOW!!! Where can I go now? It’s insane. I’m using the tickets for future flights. I’m not requesting a refund. I hope they go bankrupt or someone bomb them. Also, the CS lady was a little rude. It’s a job that she signed up for and if she doesn’t like her job, I am pretty sure there are plenty of people who would love to take her job in this economy.
I flew Detroit to Phoenix in September. The check in kiosk asked me if I wanted to upgrade. I upgraded for the outbound leg only for 5000 frq flier miles. I had to insert a credit card to process. This concerned me so I even asked the agent if I was being charged extra. Long story short, when I received my credit card statement they had charged me $1,100 to “exchange” the return ticket (for the same seat on the same flight). Of course the airline isn’t budging. NEVER NEVER NEVER will I choose Delta / Northwest when there is an alternative flight. Unfortunately living in a hub city complicates that, which they know and use to exploit their customers to the fullest extent possible.
45 minute unexplained delay from dtw to Denver, now an hour or so waiting for the one magical gate, since there are Apparently no others to use, love it!!!
It is all the dumb AMFA technicians fault for what happened at NWA….and don’t anyone ever forget it. They were the weak link for labor and NWA took it to them. I was there, management rode that AMFA horse like Seabiscuit right out of the building. Greed??? It was the stupid Mechanics that needed to be called Technicians and thought they were better than everyone else at NWA and that they were worth so much more money. Look, who’s left…everyone but the Mechanics…oops I meant TECHNICIANS! Like my momma always said, “If you’re going to be stupid, you better be strong!” *Cheers!