Aircraft: DC10-30 Engines: GE CF6-50C2 Aircraft Reg. N244NW Delivered to original operator (Japan Air System) as JA-8551 on 07/29/88 (Info courtesy Bill Harms' excellent commercial jet aircraft census database available through www.bird.ch )

London Gatwick - Minneapolis, January 19 2002, Flight Time: 8 Hours 35 minutes
Class: "New" World Business Class


After a disappointing experience on British Airways' New Club World on January 18 (see earlier trip report), I flew Northwest World Business Class London Gatwick to Minneapolis the next day. In a nutshell: I was pleasantly surprised by the flight. If you could combine so of BA's cabin layout and decor elegance with Northwest's good food attentive service, you would have the ideal airline!

Positives:

Northwest had a very professional, attentive crew on this flight. Business Class passengers were referred to by name. Meal orders taken very professionally. Comprehensive wine list and good looking menu.

Amenity kit handed out prior to departure -- did not contain much more than the BA non-kit, but the amenity bag itself is attractive, and expands into a very useful carrying bag. Headphones were excellent.

Newspaper cart wheeled around prior to departure with large selection of newspapers and magazines. Again, much nicer than BA, where newspaper requests were taken ad-hoc, and then forgotten in my case at least.

Drinks service immediately after take off. Crew attentive and made several rounds topping off wine glasses.

Meal was EXCELLENT -- one of the nicest in-flight meals in a long time. The appetizer cold meats were accompanied by spicy-sweet Indian-style "chutney", and was delicious. The main course -- I selected the Indonesian Beef with Rice entree -- was exceptional. The entree actually contained a satay-style chicken as a side, along with the spicy Indonesian beef. My neighbor had the lamb, which he said was delicious too. Note that Northwest had all-metal silverware except for the knives, which were plastic.

The crew changed into light-grey serving jackets for the meal service, which I thought was a classy touch. Their regular jackets which they had on for boarding was dark blue. I think the dinner jacket idea is a nice touch.

The main course was followed by a dessert plate and and plate of cheese and grapes. The crew came around again, offering port and cocktails. I took some port, and enjoyed the cheeses with the port. Again the crew made at least two rounds offering refills and checking on the passengers.

After the meal service, bottles of mineral water were handed out, and these were chilled -- a refreshing change from the warm bottles handed out by BA on the previous flight.

The seats were the "old-fashioned" large armchair types, with mechanical controls and footrests, and were laid out 2-2-2 in the DC10. While they looked dated, they were actually extremely comfortable -- wide, soft, and easy to sleep on. Leg-room was excellent -- 60 inches -- and recline was excellent too. After the meal service, I went into full recline, deployed the footrest, and fell asleep -- for four hours. I woke up when the crew started making the rounds for the pre-landing snacks and drinks. My neighbor commented that I must have been very tired, because I slept like a baby!

Negatives:

The DC10s are old aircraft. While the interiors were clean and looked recently refurbished, you could tell the age of the aircraft from the bathroom flushing system (blue water) and other such things. Hate the reading light system on the DC10s -- the lights are high above on the ceiling, and never seem to fall on the right spot. The cabin decor was also bland, too many shades of blue. The DC10s huge cabin windows make the cabin a lot brighter than it would otherwise would have been.

Northwest and other airlines should take a leaf out of BA's book and consider putting framed "vintage" photos etc in the cabin -- a simple idea that is really classy and elegant.

I did not sample the inflight entertainment much, as I slept for several hours. However, the system was dated -- small personal screens, limited number of channels. Much better sound quality and headphones than BA though. No video-on-demand, though I have read elsewhere on FlyerTalk that Northwest plans to introduce this with the Airbus A330s next year.

The inflight entertainment magazine -- called "Ovation" -- was quite unimpressive, and looked cheaply printed. I felt it was unnecessary to have a separate magazine for IFE when as there was not enough channels and programming to fill the magazine and justify its existence.

Though the aircraft was old, everything seemed to work fine. The safety video worked fine too. Northwest also showed an anti-DVT video at the start of the flight, with follow-along exercises to alleviate the risk of DVT. A nice idea. The air-show map was on the main screen in World business Class for most of the flight.

Overall, I had a very nice flight on Northwest. It is clear that it was an older aircraft, and missed some of the frills of newer aircraft. The cabin decor was dated, as was the appearance and workings of the seats. But the crew was excellent, the food great, and the service attentive. And, the seats were amongst the most comfortable and spacious I have experienced. Sometimes the fancy whiz-bang gadgetary seems to detract from basic seat comfort, making the seats hard and narrow. This was not the case on this flight. I would have missed the lack of PC Power ports had I not slept most of the flight though.

All in all -- if my experiences on Northwest and BA were typical, I would choose Northwest over British Airways for my next flight for sure, because of the excellent service and the comfort of the seats. I'm sure this will generate a lot of heated debate!

[This message has been edited by Montys_Mayhem (edited 01-20-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Montys_Mayhem (edited 01-20-2002).]