To say that we all feel a little sick to our stomachs over the sight of endless lines at a human-less ticket counter is putting things mildly. What sickens me more, however, is that by taking that extra-long glance at the rest of the ticketing lobby, I am seeing that NWA is the ONLY airline WITHOUT CSAs at the counter. I was non-revving a couple of weeks ago at O'Hare, and all available CSAs were out in front of the counter teaching passengers how to use the very machines that are replacing them, the time it took to process one passenger?..approximately 12-minutes versus the normal 3 to 5 with the human touch.? Why? Yes, of course the obvious...that's its new, blah...blah...blah...BUT what I was witnessing that day was a cluster-f--K of grand proportion...weather closures and oversell, on the last weekend of Spring Break. To anybody who understands our line of work, you can all picture what was happening in your minds...just think of that atmosphere at O'Hare, 7 years ago winter blizzard...it was about the same. The SAD part is, while we weren't the only carrier experiencing the oversells compunded by weather delays....WE WERE THE ONLY AIRLINE WITH JUST KIOSKS to process those passengers affected. Everyone in the terminal was talking about the idiocy of Northwest...the passengers being affected will neer forget...the sight of stranded passengers wandering aimlessly around the O'Hare ticket counter area asking other airlines if they knew where our people haD GONE TO will forever remain imprinted on my mind....this is going to be our turning point downward if we all can't do something to stop this direction management has taken. To say it is the wave of the future is sightless on their part. Perhaps what they don't understand is that kiosks will only perform to about the level that they are at right now...one of convenience for the passenger not the company. To make them convenience for the company and not the passenger is giving passengers just one more HUGE reason not to fly Northwest, and it is not what our competitors are doing. Just take a look at the ticket lobbies on your next layover..look real hard.

This from a AS employee:

At my airport, our counter is next to NW. I was over there chattin' today, and one of your employees showed me a job listing in your computer for "skycaps" @ MSP, DTW, an BNA. The starting pay is like $9.06/hr and "tips are NOT to be accepted"! The agent says that they will all be gone here (SMF) by the end of 2005, leaving just 5 rapmers. WHAT KIND OF CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THAT? What if someone needs to make a change to their ticket, or file a claim for lost bags? This sucks for all NW employees, and I really feel sorry that you guys have to put up with this $#!^. All of us in this lame-assed industry are keeping a close eye on NW, just to see how far management is going to go.

I really like NW, especially when non revving (thanks for first almost all the time BTW), but I just don't think the average NW customer is gonna put up with this kind of stuff. Let's face it, the average age of your pax looks to me to be like 75 or so. Do you really think that they are gonna really use those kiosk machines?

I realize that there are a lot of different personalities on this forum. I also know that each and every one of us has some type of vested interest in NW and it’s employee’s. The approach that NW management is taking is obviously not intended to “enhance” the PAX’s experience. More importantly are the NW employee’s who will be lost when this shuffle goes through. If we all take a moment to send Richard Andersen a e-mail expressing our concerns and displeasures it may/might open his/managements eyes.