FROM WSJ, 4/28/99

"Seven Hours of Sitting and Waiting Leaves
Northwest Passengers Near Breaking Point"
By SUSAN CAREY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/...3719136029.htm

A long and detailed account of the events that took place. Many graphics and interesting links such as internal NWA interoffice memo.

It is a bit long to repost on here so I suggest reading from a paper copy.

Please post the article here so people who don't have a sub. to the WSJ website can read it.

Thanx, kyklin, but I don't choose to subscribe in order to read the article. Got too many usernames/passwords to deal with as it is...

But thank you for the post.

Try http://interactive.wsj.com/public/cu...ssFareMain.htm

This may not be available tomorrow though since it's a today's article. This page is available to public.

Dan.

It can't be posted here. The jump takes up two full pages inside. It's not much more than a long agony article. They left St. Martins in the afternoon, diverted to Tampa, spent the night, got to Detroit at 2 the next day and spent 7 hours on the tarmac. In between are endless stories of discomfort and freaking out.

It was well researched; the author obviously spent hours and hours listening to passengers tell their stories and piecing them together.
But it would have been more interesting if they went into ANY detail over the operations in DTW that day and how decisions were made during the crisis.

100K, I respectfully disagree with part of your WSJ article review. I found it compelling reading. Thought at times I was reading a fictional horror novel (Steven King comes to mind).

While I was already less than a fan of Northwest, the article convinced me to never again get on one of their planes.

Since I have a WSJ cookie on my computer, when I click on the link I see the article. I guess if a person clicks on the link without the cookie, it will lead to the subscription screen? If yes, let me know and I will take off the URL. Sorry for the confusion.

However, I also cannot paste the text in its entirety in here for a few reasons. First, doing that most likely violates my subscriber agreement and possibly copyright laws. Second, the article on the web does not paste well; it will have to be extensively reformatted in order to make it "all text". Lastly, the article takes up 10+ pages if pasted in a MS Word document!

Thanks Kyklin, since I live in Michigan-deeeeeep in NW territory, I found the article very worthwhile.

Dilbert's url pulled it up just fine. I was happy to find the site-especially the free part. Mossberg's personal Technology's column is great for us nubee's.

It was a great article. I read it on the corporate jet yesterday (dang, no miles for that flight) as we were bouncing all over the place in a storm. Made bouncing in the air seem better than sitting on the ground.

If you guys enjoyed it, great, the WSJ did its job. I still think if you decide to spend 2 pages (huge for any newspaper) on a single incident, you have more than 1 narrow topical theme/plot line. Besides, weren't you all left hanging as to why the jet kept sitting there with open gates available (albeit non-NW gates?)

From what I recall, NW was asked to confirm details and they were not too specific in their responses. A behind the scenes view of the operations would have been interesting, but ever so often, you need a cheap whine.

I was actually in the Worldclub in MPS when I first read this thread. I went to the front desk and asked for a coy of the WSJ and was told they didn't have any copies available.

The FA on my plane gave me a very well-read copy which I read with my seat mate as we bounced our way back to Seattle. While I found the article very interesting, I agree that it would have been far more compelling had it contained another two pages of feedback from Northwest. I am sure that this failure was not from want of trying on the part of WSJ. Most people in the midst of lawsuits are only taught to say, "No Comment" or, if they are very important, they might be taught "You'll need to discuss that with my lawyer." (Couldn't resist)

Anyway, it got me thinking, "WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE HAD I BEEN ON THE PLANE?" WHAT WOULD YOU DO?


[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 04-30-99).]

Today the Palm Beach Post reprinted the WSJ article. I dont know if the original had this response from NW but as it is short, I will post it here.

Northwest, which faces at least three lawsuitws from passangers stranded on various flights, says it made mistakes that weekend.
But it puts most of the blame on a "once-in-a-generation storm." The carrier says it erred in contiuning to send flights into and ouf of Detriot despite the blizzard. It concedes that its plans for handling "irregular" operations in Detroit were inadequate and that communications broke down between its operations center in St. Paul, Minn., and Detroit.
It also cites the fact that fewer than half its usual ground operations employees showed up for work because of the weather, paralyzing the movement of planes into and away from gates. Equipment failed in the extreme conditions; some of it, the carrier acknowledges, had not been winterized.

TW