GG

As threatened, here's the tale of our first NW trip in this century. I wrote this for those Deltoids who are still considering switching airlines and have expressed interested in our experience. That's why it's in the Delta forum. The NW guys know what their airline is like.

As we expected, there were positives and negatives in relation to flying Delta. What we didn't expect was to run into a major weather mess, but it certainly gave us a chance to test NW.

Our automatic upgrades came through at 72 hrs or thereabouts, even with both of us on one PRN. That was always a hassle when we were Gold on DL, having to call and have our reservation split to get our upgrades done.

Big Positive: I was still asleep whenever DL 657 took off for ATL (it's scheduled at 6:15 ack bloody emma), but I did hear 1058 leaving for CVG around 7:15, from the comfort of my bed. Ahhh...

Negative: no NW Skycaps at Bluegrass Field. (Not an issue for most of you, I realize.) We also were not allowed to check our third bags, although we are supposed to be able to as confirmed F pax. Vegas Agent on the NW forum has explained how they're supposed to do it, so we should get this worked out in future.

The Mesaba Avro (RJ 85) was fine, and we are very happy at the prospect of flying that plane LEX-DTW. The F seats are huge, and coach seats wider than F on DL's 764s. Pitch is OK too. Based on the PA announcement, coach also gets a full beverage service, which beats Fast Break to ATL any day.

The onboard F service was very similar to Delta's as it always used to be and still is sometimes. We got coats hung up and pre-flight drinks. The FA was pleasant. Once airborne she offered another round of drinks, snacks, and drink refills. There was none of this "everyone stay seated with your seatbelts on while we try to find some rough air" crap Delta has pulled on three quarters of our LEX/SDF to/from ATL flights the last few months.

We had somewhat inadvertently booked a 33-minute connection at DTW, landed about 10 minutes late (snow flurries), and actually made our next flight even changing concourses. I hardly recommend such a tight connection, but it's nice to know it can be done.

757 to BOS - again, very similar in-flight service. The FAs were friendly and attentive - not better than DL's usual, but easily as good. We got full lunch service. Haven't seen that on a 90-minute DL flight in a while. The food was edible. Portions were large - I couldn't finish my chicken pasta salad. Dessert was a biggish slice of cheesecake, which was really pretty good - a lot better than DL's current usual. The downside is that I ate the cheesecake . Skipping dessert on DL is very easy these days (not the Sundaes, of course, but we don't see them very often any more). Maybe the NW solution is to go straight to the cheesecake.

Boston got a couple of feet of snow while we were there. Friends who were scheduled to go back to MSP on NW Monday evening were able to rebook to earlier in the day, and actually made it out. Our Tuesday am flight was cancelled. First they tried to put us on ATA to Chicago and some sort of torture prop down to LEX later on Tuesday, but we called the elite line and got ourselves rebooked on our original itinerary a day later. I was happy to wait it out in comfort instead of hanging around the airport trying to get something earlier or flying ATA. We didn't have much hope of keeping our upgrades in such a travel mess, but as it happened, we snagged the last two F seats on the plane.

We bought a 2 month Worldclub membership at Logan and got quite a lot of use out of it there - we had showed up early and had a lot of time to kill - and at DTW, as our LEX flight was delayed out of White Plains. There's a lounge on B concourse near what we think will be our usual LEX gate. It's quite pleasant - self serve bar but plenty of variety and the Espresso/Latte/Cappuccino machine is a nice touch; more varied and tastier snacks than DL's endless kibble, two-sided fireplace with Comfy chairs, and also windows for plane watching. Oh, and lots of real magazines. The negatives are 1) no internet access without using your own laptop; and 2) unappealing beer.

NW doesn't include club membership at any elite level - it does discount the price. But we saved enough money on our tickets to justify the expense. If the DL codeshare goes through, we will use our PM CRC memberships for the rest of the year, and if not, we'll pony up the dough for annual membership.

The club agents were pleasant and helpful. One even tracked me down to my chair at the fireside to warn me that our LEX plane was on the ground and would be boarding soon. I knew this - LexPax was at the gate - but she didn't know I knew it, and I really did appreciate her concern.

Final note: our bags actually beat us to the baggage carousel. I was shocked. It's usually a 20 minute wait on our Delta flights (and was longer until I took all the Priority tags off our bags).

Sorry if this has been long, and YMMV, but we are pretty sure now we've made the right decision for our flying needs.

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[This message has been edited by GG (edited 02-25-2003).]