NW is my dedicated airline, I will not fly CO or AS Metal, I will only fly NW metal, so if I have to go back to a hub then so be it.
Now with that said, I have had some issues and either I whip out the cell phone or walk directly into the Worldclub, in fact if I walk into the club with an unhappy face which is very rare, they know Ive been pissed of by a NWA employee, and everytime they made it right. Once the club was closed in SEA and I called the elite line and bravo I walked back to the gate and told her to print me a boarding pass since I was put on the flight and she said NO Im not going to allow you on this flight without a change fee, told her to pull the PNR as there are notes on it that will instruct you to put me on the flight and if your unable you need to call the helpdesk with an explantion.

Crap seems to happy 5 percent of the time, and usually when it rains it pours.

NW has come along way in the past two years, and I swear by them and I will contiune to fly them until such time Im no longer able to fly.

With 100 percent EUA, check in from home 30 hrs prior, the club and the agents at elite line, well I couldnt ask for anything more.

When a delay is a result of weather, alot of the "requirements" go out the window...

No excuse for the poor attitude or service you received...I'm sure it was a tough day for all of those working at DTW and MSP (if I am remembering correctly, this was probably last week when both MSP and DTW had fog (mainly MSP)) but if they can't handle the pressure of the cancellations, delays and the repeated questions, get out of the business...there are too many excellent employees being put to the streets in the next couple of weeks to have these types still hanging around...they had a chance to possibly make a difference to a new customer, a much needed one, but instead they sent him packing to a competitor -- I'm sorry this was your first experience with NW and even though I see things from the other side of the counter and don't necessarily agree with every decision made (including the recent 12% pulldown - but that'll be a wait-and-see and another thread) all-in-all I think NW does a pretty good job as an airline.

My GOD! NW is still leaving people on the runway. You'd think they had something in place to prevent their famous incident from happening again.

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God Bless America West and ...

HP - Platinum/990k miles
BA - Dirt/5k Soon to be Gold
AA - Dirt/60k, 2MM soon.
UA - Dirt/19k miles
NW - Dirt/10k For emergencies.

Yeah...that's the one point I'll have to agree with him on...NWA always tries to avoid Rule 240...my wife's (silver) connection was cxld after she arrived Thursday and all they could tell her was "we'll have to book you on the 7pm flight"...about 12 hrs after her connection was to take off...called CO and was told plenty of avail but when she mentioned this to NWA rep they said..nope CO doesn't have any seats avail but out of the blue they were able to confirm her on the 1pm that 5 mins before she was only able to standby for

But with all that whining I'm doing NWA still does a great job...just be streetsmart when you have a delay and manage it yourself

I've had the internet/self check in not work on a few flights...usually that means either: 1) your a security selectee or 2) something is out of sync in your record

As to the Upgrade...I always ask for it...cause too often if I'm dealing with a human they don't ask and I don't get it if EUA didnt automatically do it for me...but thankfully on NWA the majority of the time EUA does it unlike CO's EUA.....side question, has anyone else noticed NWA saying call CO if the EUA didn't catch you but a seat is open-finally on my 3rd call to NWA they manually processed it but calling CO for an EUA regardless of who's equipment it is is just a joke...I might as well call Saddam and ask him to process it

No problem. My experience was quite unbelievable. I am sure it happens very rarely. Otherwise NW would be out of business in no time.

I was coming to DTW from MSN this time: NW1429 on Mon 3/17 -- I have not checked what the flight status thing says about it. It was supposed to leave at 6:00am Central, but it was about 9am when we took off. The whole time we spent sitting at the end of the runway. It was pretty foggy at MSN too, but other flights were taking off.

I have no idea how difficult it is to predict when fog will clear out, but it is a quite typical phenomenon at certain Midwest airports (DTW too?). So I would think the best solution would have been not board our flight at all in the first place, and start moving pax to other flights out of MSN (e.g. a NW flight to MEM left on time at 6:10am -- don't know if it had open seats though).

As it usually is, the customer service of any company is really put to a test when something goes wrong. The weather was not in NW's control, but it is not an excuse to bad attitude towards any customer, with an elite card or without. It is not very nice to hear after explaining (to a CSR) that my 4-hour travel changed to a 16-hour misery, that "It was caused by the weather. We cannot do anything about it." Maybe they really could not, but some sign of goodwill with an apology would have made me feel a lot better... just a $10 food voucher or something.

I used to live in Europe until about four years ago, so in some sense I am still comparing NW and other U.S. carriers to e.g. Scandinavian Airlines, which I used to fly a lot. Personally I find that the biggest difference over the bond is that all SK agents are really well trained and seem to enjoy their jobs. They seem to be authorized to use their own judgment more too when dealing with problems -- they don't always have to call a supervisor when doing something non-standard. I have got excellent service from e.g. UA staff too, but the variation seems to be bigger here.

The upgrades seem to be a very popular topic here Thanks to all for your good advice. I will note it and be more proactive getting them next time. Anyhow, it is not that big deal to me that I didn't get them. I bought a coach ticket, so I was expecting to fly in coach.

[This message has been edited by ORD Finn (edited 03-22-2003).]

Well, actually the least pleasant NW CSR at DTW, who I was telling about above, was working at the WorldClub (at the end of the terminal with lower gate numbers). Well, at least he didn't throw me out right away, since I am not a club member...

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by LUVSWA:

Quote:

I have found the CS better as a Gold, especially the dedicated elite line. That may give you something to strive for?...

Thanks for the advice. However, in my case, I don't think that I'd give MORE of my business to an airline that treats me like a SECOND Class citizen when it comes to their elite members....

Me fly NWA more to obtain Gold Elite to get acceptable customer service?

I don't think so, I'll just stick to with CO that, although has undergone through numerous enhancements, has treated me quite well as a Silver Elite over these past three years.

Besides, I use my miles mostly for my friends and family for free upgrades from dicounted coach tickets or for free tickets in general. With NW, I can't use my miles to upgrade them from any fare, I can do this with OnePass.....a significant difference between the two, but quite similar, programs.

Overall, each program caters to different type of flyers. Some are happy with NW others with CO. I myself am going back to CO. I might still fly NW but will just use my OP account to earn the miles.



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SFnFlaGuy

There must be some kind of spell on people switching from UA to NW. This is what happend to me on my first trip on NW in February 2001, after I have switched from UA:

1. I was on F70 from VIE to AMS and was sitting in 2F. As we were taking off, I heard some kind of strange noise was coming from above. Few seconds later I was blasted with water from melted ice. The right side of my shirt and my hair were totally wet. An FA saw it and she said she could not believe her eyes. Fortunatelly, I had a spare shirt in my carry-on. She said she was going to file some kind of internal report.

2. Upon arrival to TYS I found out my luggage was nowhere to be found. All of my winter cloth were there (I was coming back to TYS on a one-way ticket after 2 months in Europe) and it was 25F in TYS.

Next day after arrival, I went back to the airport and ask NWA folks what they can do. They told me to go shopping and bring the receits to them. I got a check from NWA for the cloth, WHOLE bunch of miles, TCV for delayed luggage and another TVC for the water accident.

Since then I had no major mishaps from NWA and I never looked back. I even managed to switch 3 of my buddies from LH to NW. But that might have something to do with the fact that they serve Grolsh on tap at AMS and not at FRA

--Jano


[This message has been edited by Jano (edited 03-22-2003).]

I'm a United defector to NW. I've had uniformly good to excellent experiences with NW this year.

I did have to have Gold Elite re-enter my Worldperks number to get the upgrades since I'd booked prior to the comp status. But I've had about the 75% experience related above.

I've also experienced wx delays. But what I notice about NW is that I've had much, much more frequent and detailed information from GA's. Overall, there is no comparison between employee attitudes on the two carriers.

Your experience, horrid as it obviously was, could have been an anomaly. Probably similar to the SFH that marked the slide to abysmal for UA performance.

My wife and I switched from AA to NW this year. In our combined flying (50+ segments this year) we've had one unfortunate issue (with a dork here at FLL), but otherwise outstanding service. And even with our "incident" a call to the Gold Elite desk dealt with the issue -- they even went so far to call the gate at my wife's connecting point (MSP) to speak with the gate agent and make sure she was upgraded on that leg...

We're very, very happy we've switched!

Steve