NWA Rant
 

I usually fly Delta, I've been flying NWA lately only because they are the only airline with a decent connection between Ft Wayne, IN and Roanoke VA, but there's some issue EVERY single week!

Believe it or not, these all happened in sequential flights;
- Diverted to Philidelphia because of mechanical issues.
- Delayed because "waiting on crew"
- Delayed because "waiting on crew"
- Delayed due to mechanical issues
- Cancelled due to mechanical issues, rescheduled on a flight that was delayed due to mechanical issues (yes, two flights within 3 hours of each other both had mechanical issues), and then almost bumped off the connecting flight I was switched to (and confirmed on!) due to weight and balance issues (guess the partner elite status doesn't mean anything to them)

I usually fly Delta when I can, and I've never had this many issues in such a short period of time -- I'm usually VERY tolerant, and I NEVER get up set at the gate agents, or take my frustrations out at the people at the airport, there's plenty of that doing on already. I also don't get upset with delays due to weather, atc, etc., because that's completely unavoidable -- however, when there are so many mechanical issues and delays due to poor scheduling, that get's incredibly frustrating.

Oh yea, to make matters worse, here's a funny story. When I got diverted to Philidelphia, the maintenance crew came out, opened up the jet engine, worked on it for about an hour or so, then closed it up. An inspector came out to look at it, then left.
The gate agent then informed the crowd that we could begin boarding in about 10 minutes. About 30 minutes later (still hadn't started boarding yet), the maintenance crew came back out, opened up the engine, and worked in there for another 30 minutes or so. The gate agent then informed us of what happened (don't know if this was smart or not). After the maintenance crew left the first time, they got a call from dispatch to ask if they put the O-Ring back in the engine. Oops...that's what that extra part was. Apparantly, they had missed an important part to re-assembling the engine, and had to go out and try again... That didn't give me a lot of confidence in Northwest's maintenance!!!

Okay I'm done...

Sounds to me like someone was trying to tell you that you shouldn't be going to Roanke!

Welcome to the WorldPerks forum, a.k.a. the frustrated traveler's punching bag. :)

Let me be the first to say, " I feel your pain," and wish you had a better experience. I think I can also say that, while I'm not one of the ones who almost always defends the airline, I can almost guarantee you that your numerous bad experiences aren't typical systemwide, and hopefully will get better!

I agree that the scheduling has been problematic and again, hopefully will get better.

Hopefully you'll have better luck next time.

And welcome to FT!

If this happened in PHL, the work was probably done by a 3rd party vendor. That could have happened to any plane at PHL that was operated by an airline w/o its own mechanics at PHL.

The call from "dispatch" likely came from NW's senior mechanics back home reviewing the work & asking questions.

The system worked as it is supposed to work.

That still leaves you batting 1.000 (had to invert it, didn't like the looks of 0.000), not good ..... At its worst, my track record of leaving on my originally scheduled Comair flight never dropped below 0.375.

Flights between FWA-ROA via DTW are operated by Pinnacle or Mesaba. The CRJs are operated by Pinnacle and the Saab 340 turbo props are operated by Mesaba. Both are separate airlines from NWA and both operate their own maintenance department as well as employee groups. Big daddy NWA oversees to a limited extent the daily operations of both airlines, but in your case the shots were called from MEM or MSP.

The mechanical delays are inevitable... every airline has them and will continue to have them as long as they operate airplanes.

The crew delays can happen at any airline as well, but some are more prone to them. Pinnacle is chronically short staffed and Mesaba is experiencing a few growing pains at the moment. I know that Pinnacle has a lot of aircraft swaps built into their schedules which will exacerbate a delay. At Mesaba we usually keep an airplane all day unless we have long breaks or we happen to be flying an airplane that needs routing to a maintenance facility and we are going elsewhere.

Sorry to hear about your experiences, but unfortunately these are the realities of the business. I hope the next time you fly it goes a little less painfully.


AZJ

When I read the "O-ring" part, I couldn't help but think about that scene from Austin Powers "Be Careful... you are going to blow out your O-ring" :) Welcome to FT!