I just looked back at my recent history ( I fly CO, DL and NW but collect miles on NW) and noticed that I have had a mechanical problem on 5 out of the last 6 round trips...

2005
14NOV Original HSV-DTW-BWI Actual HSV-DCA on US
20-24 JUN No Problems
11MAR BNA-DTW-MSP equpiment late into DTW due to mechanical 12 MAR MSP-DLH
11FEB LAS-MSP-MEM mechanical delayed departure in MSP, pinnacle shut door early MEM-HSV That afternoon
2004
12MAR DCA-MSP-LNK mechanical delayed departure from MSP
2002
23SEP BUF-DTW mechanical problem in DTW 24SEP DTW-MEM-HSV

The streak was 4 until the flight in June, but in seems my bad luck continues. What is the longest streak of mechanicals people have had on any one airline?

D

hmmm...now what about that mechanic strike?

I've flown 92 segments since May and have had maybe 3 or 4 delays and 1 of those was weather. One was a couple of hours and the others were an hour or less.
Mechanic strike? What strike????

As they say, YMMV! Haven't had a significant delay on NW for... I don't know, 2-3 years? Long enough I don't really remember.

Longest mechanical delay this year on NW was ~30 minutes while they towed a replacement aircraft over to the next gate for us to use.

Several cancellations on DL jungle jets. In 2 of the 3 I was rebooked on direct NW flights, upgraded, and still collected the DL mileage. In the 3rd case, I ended up on the next CVG-STL flight (thank you, Skyteam Elite standby priority).

One significant mechanical delay on KLM AMS-ATL.

Add a few assorted weather and air/ground traffic delays that I can't blame the airlines for.

That's a decent record for 85K actual miles with 20K left to fly this year (counting award tickets). Well, I guess it's not really 85K since I'm counting 2.4K DL miles I didn't fly.

Mike in Mpls.

Apologist at Large

I haven't had any issues this year on 41 segments on NWA. I have a had a few on other airlines. 1 on 5 segments on HP 2 out 4 on Song.

I have had 100% of my trips delayed or canceled this year. Two days ago a mechanical forced me to cancel a trip to Bangkok because NWA couldn't get me to DTW to make a connection to NRT. Their website shows a refund to my Visa CC but my Visa account doesen't reflect this. I called NWA and they said it would take about a week to show on my CC. They couldn't expedite the refund. I want to book the same trip Dec. 6 but I can't because it will put me over my CC limit. Catch 22. Can't book until next week, and fare will be gone by then. Northwest sucks!
Dave

The unilateral cancels for no apparent reason are what really get to me. My in-laws have had an especially bad streak - the had to drive back from Champaign IL because their flight was canceled and they had to be in Detroit the next day. Then my mother-in-law's flight home from Kansas City was cancelled a few weeks later.

Been flying every week through DTW and I can not remember the last time I had a week where I wasn't delayed for mechanical reasons, awaiting flight crew, awaiting aircraft, awaiting the second coming.......I don't look for things to improve at all considering the time of year.

Hmm, strangely enough my trips have been getting better. I've had far fewer delays in the past month or two than during the spring, summer, or right after the strike began. Seems things are smoothing out and running (maybe, dare I say) better then pre-August even. I guess every experience is unique.

Y'all wish me luck... I am on a 9 segment 7700+ mile trip this weekend through next week