Originally Posted by
BearX220
NW has delivered a mostly rotten product in recent years, but the management knows what's going on -- has seen it coming for a long time -- and positioned the airline as an acquisition target, pure and simple. The NW proposition is hardly marketed, barely branded, and unhappily staffed, but in this strategy none of that matters. (Management has known for a long time that the Northwest brand would go away anyway, so there was no point in investing in it. They even re-schemed the airplanes in a mostly naked, exposed-silver style that would be quick and easy to repaint for a new operator.) What matters is Asia, a couple of fortress hubs, some high-yield captive routes in the midwest, and a smattering of useful aircraft (e.g. the A330s). That's what NW boils down to after all these decades... in a harsh but clear-eyed assessment.
Your position only makes sense if you can demonstrate that at least one other carrier has done better than NW in every category you mention above. I have no doubt some carriers have done better than NW in some categories, but, let's be blunt, is the USAir or DL or UA or AA brand significantly better than NW's?
The sad statement is not how good or bad NW is, but rather how it does relative to other airlines. It is in this context that I find your comments reasonably severe.
NW has adapted well to the markets it serves, in which passengers are unlikely to fly very long distances. Resources are not infinite, and NW does not do everything well. One could argue that NW's market strenght has allowed it to get away with older planes and diminished inflight amenities, but that's the nature of the market they serve. (To make an analogy - purposely exaggerated to illustrate my point: do you really need leather seats in your car if you only drive 15 minutes a day and have a finite budget?) One could also argue that, because it relies more than others on connecting traffic, NW has had to develop and rely on very efficient hubs - which have become a strong point from a repeat customer perspective.
In the end, it remains a personal choice to prefer IFE on domestic flights and a connection via JFK or CDG over no IFE but connections via DTW or AMS. Or an old DC9 with what one could perceive as so-so service, over an RJ with what one could perceive as great service - I insist on using the word "perceive" because service is a matter of perceptions.
We have now reached the end of this phase where passengers get Wal-Mart prices but 5th Avenue service, and they - particularly the leisure traveler - will have to realize that this is no longer a tenable proposition.
The merger itself, if done right, could allow management to cherry-pick the best of both worlds, with a result that would be truly fantastic. However, while it is easy to argue that FFlyers do not always make rational decisions, it is equally easy to argue that management does not always make rational decisions either - or at the very least is not transparent about how it reaches apparently irrational decisions. This lack of transparency is, at the moment, casting a real shadow on the prospects of the merger, one that is not only acknowledged by passengers but by investors as well considering that both stocks have not done particularly well since the announcement.