david mccoy,

As somebody who flew 48 transpacific/Asia segments on NW this year alone, I find your comments to be amusing. First off, I'm assuming MNS = MNL . Every flight I've been on has offered IFE (including audio and video) with headphones. Meal quality is good -- and sometimes excellent -- for airplane food. Only a picky eater, which you said you are not, would think otherwise. And as a rule of thumb, better food (presented better) is served on flights within Asia (as opposed to transpacific segments). Earplugs are always available -- there's always some in the First Aid kit . I very rarely see babies on these flights, let "all over the aircraft." And if a ticket agent in FLL claimed she had never heard of an elite line, perhaps you should have pointed out the sign -- which clearly indicates "FIRST CLASS/ELITE CHECKIN." Canned fruit cocktail? I've never seen this on a NW flight before; I'm actually looking forward to it . One other thing to note is that flights within Asia feature younger flight crews that work those flights exclusively (along with a veteran US-based purser).

One thing I tire of is reading about UA's "awesome" service. I flew UA transpacific in early November. I didn't think the service was any better than NW's -- if fact, I found it worse. A couple of the meals were better than NW's, and a couple weren't. I was anticipating the famous snack cart talked about so frequently on FT... it never arrived. The only way in which UA was better than NW was E+ -- but it's rumored to be a future casualty of Ch. 11.

Perhaps you just had a bad flight -- when you travel frequently - so be it with Northwest or Singapore Airlines - those happen. I've had several really poor NW flights, but I've been compensated with miles... the other 98%-99% have went very well. I tire of reading message boards such as epinions in which readers whine "We flew NW to Paris last week. We told them it was our anniversary. They refused to upgrade us. United did last year. I will NEVER fly NW." and reading the next response "wow! they refused the upgrade? I'm sure glad I don't fly 'em." It's downright pathetic, to say the least.

OK, enough ranting... Happy New Year everyone!

[This message has been edited by IndustrialPatent (edited 01-02-2003).]