bbuehler2000

I received the following alert from our corporate travel agency today:

"Alert:

While booking your travel, please be advised that Northwest is canceling a significant amount of flights, apparently, due to differences between pilots and management.

These cancellations do not affect NW code-shares operated by other airlines, including Mesaba, Pinnacle, Continental, Delta, KLM and others."

It seems that this goes beyond the end-of-month cancellation problems that NW has been having. I thought they were due to crew shortages, but this refers to "differences between pilots and management".

Has anyone else received a similar warning from their travel agent? Is NW in bigger trouble than simply having crew shortages?

I am very loyal to NW and hate to book away from them, but this has me second-guessing myself.

MikeMpls

Travel agencies aren't likely to know any more (and quite possibly less) than we know here on FT.

clarence5ybr

This isn't anything new. According to NW, a significant part of the crew shortage is the result of excessive sick leave on the part of current pilots. According to the pilot's union, the crew shortage is solely the result of NW cutting too many pilots in hard times and not having hired enough as they've started doing better.

dusdidt

I think NW is using the pilots as an excuse for its canceling flights. I think Steenland has an emerging from bankruptcy plan that eliminates or reduces less profitable routes and flights. He can't come out and say that he's downsizing the airline.
NW will be reducing the number of summer flights to the autumn and winter schedule. All airlines do this but NW is planning a greater downsizing, eliminating routes. The current summer schedule and inventory of seats in the computerized reservations system now doesn't reflect the planned cancellations. What normally happens to a reservation that was made before the cancellations is that the travel agent receives a computerized message showing the held flights as canceled and the reservation rebooked to new flights of the new schedule. In fact, more coed-share flights will probably be created with Skyteam metal that aren't canceled.

Fewer flights means few convenient flight options, particularly if one isn't in a NW major city.

I hope NW transitions soon out of this poorly managed emergence from Chapter 11.

UnitedSkies

Wow you can't be serious that Steenland is doing this on purpose! Even if there is a huge plan to cut out unprofitable flights and re-engineer the schedule, it HAS to be done several months in advance to not disrupt customers' plans.

crimguy1976

Indeed..I stopped using Amex travel when they wanted me to call the airlines to make changes and reissue tickets. They either didn't want to or didn't know how. I don't put much stock into an agency telling people to bewarned of NW.

tcook052

Being a TA I'll applaud the OP's agent for bringing the situation to his attention and letting him decide want he wants to do, if anything, about the recent events with NW. At the very least one cannot say his TA failed to warn him about the airline's troubles in recent days.

MikeMpls

Except that it's off the wall & badly timed. He received the message today. If the pattern of the last two months is repeated, the next three weeks should be good. Then watch out.

July was predictable based on June. I'm not so sure about August, given that NW should have had ample opportunity to have pilots bid on totally revised work schedules for this month. If the mods would start the August-delayed-flight thread, perhaps we can begin our (un) informed speculation.

thomasrich

This does not make sense when you take into consideration that alot of the flights that have been cancelled lately have been into major markets (LAX, Vegas, Seattle, Chicago, etc.).

MNnative

My company uses Amex travel, and other than the time difference between Hawaii and New Hampshire, they've been great. I've had very bad experiences with others (shall remain nameless), but no complaints about Amex. The first month of the cancellations in June, I was concerned because we were traveling with a church youth group at the end of the month. Amex didn't book the youth group trip, but I called them for some business travel I had right after, and they helped me with both trips...no disruptions.

bcj1949

Page A3 of the Wall Street Journal today (8/4) has an article on NWA and their CEO.....bottom line is that capacity right after coming out of BC went up 4% and pilot agreement was to boost hours to 90 / month.....to much capacity and not enough pilots especially as true fatique set in with the longer hours....article states NWA now plans capacity reduction and more pilots but the latter will not happen fast.....

dusdidt

They cancel flights to those markets where they have many flights, permitting them to cancel some and bump them to the remaining flights there. Also those cities have many other competing airlines keeping the fares down. The fares NYC LAX, Seattle, Vegas and Chicago are cheap flights around $300 range not including high taxes and fees, earning less per mile flown than what they can charge to and from smaller destinations. They make their buck on those NYC to LAX, SFO, SEA, VAS flights on the Business Class fares. The lucative markets are where NW has less or no competition, cities where they use small planes and provide fewer flights to connect pax to their hubs to LAX. It certainly not around $300 plus taxes. They won't eliminate those routes unless it's a money loser.

mikey1003

I'm kinds surprised that so many people still use travel agents. Our company stopped when fees were added.

jiburi

There was a time whenever flight delay occured, one could call the travel agent 24/7 and reschedule all or part of the itinerary. They were at one time a "partner in travel".

Jiburi