Greetings --

It's been a good several months (7+) since I've flown on an Avro because of them being pulled out of markets I've used on a regular basis.. (RJ / Pinnacle rotation)

However, I was on an Avro Flight with Mesaba just a few days ago and it left me with a bad taste. At the station (decent sized airport w/jet bridge facilities) the local AirLink staff had a bad attitude, there was no gate agent around, & no standby upgrades were processed (a few open seats up front and I saw many other elites complaining).

At boarding time, one gate agent shows up and tells everyone to board (a nearly full flight -- complete mayhem). No special boarding for FC or elites. Just an ugly one for all like the Southwest cattle herd but worse (doesn't WN use smaller group sizes?).

A gentleman near me managed to get on the RJ-85 with *4* (four) full-size/oversize carry-ons. This never should of gotten past the gate agent, but instead the gate agent takes two of the bags and gate checks them through to AMS for free instead of charging $100 per extra bag (this guy already had 3 checked). The agent said he wasn't supposed to do this, but was going to make this "one exception" -- now, how the heck did these 4 oversized carryons get by the gate agent upon boarding, let alone the TSA?

While on the plane (prior to pushback), I overheard the FA's complaining about the upgrades, they were busy talking about submitting resumes & job applications to other companies, no pre-departure drinks were served, and it was not the "Mesaba" I used to know and fly. Perhaps this was just a "one off", but is there a round of layoffs coming soon with Mesaba? Anyone have official word? I know some RJ-85's are being parked soon from what I've heard.

At DTW, I needed some assistance because of my cancelled connecting flight upon arrival. In the Mesaba Wing (B), the agents wouldn't help me or even listen (my request, an e-ticket print on stock, was quite simple, IMHO).

They would tell me that they were Mesaba and not Northwest Airlines. One in particular at B1 (my inbound gate agent) was extremely rude and nasty about it to me. She said she was Mesaba, not NW, and was just "too busy" -- yet she didn't appear busy either, by any means.

Excuse me, but doesn't Mesaba represent Northwest? Don't they have the same computer systems to where they could punch a few keys and do the same thing as an agent in concourse A? They're wearing NWA logo-wear?

All the "Mesaba" agents I spoke with tried to get me to go to the passenger service desk at C, but when I got there, I got the "airlink only", were're not NWA, runaround as well.

On the bright side, I did a Mesaba flight this morning, which departed A concourse, with the Avro, which was much better. Proper boarding, pre-departure drinks, and great service.

I could live without the pre-departure drinks on shorter flights, but to overhear the FA's complaining about upgrades on the RJ-85, talking about "other" employment, gate agents not doing their job, failure of processing elite waitlists, and the bad attitude in general I experienced such as not being willing to assist me in DTW rubbed me the wrong way.

As a very loyal customer, I don't think I'm asking for anything unreasonable. At DTW I was sent on a goose chase and ended up running the underground tunnel between A and B two times (r/t) because of the unwillingness of any NW/Mesaba employee to help me at DTW B.

All I wanted was an official e-ticket print-out (on stock) to provide to another carrier operating out of B (CO) for a re-booking as CO had trouble pulling my e-ticket. I wasn't wanting an endorsement or anything special as CO agreed to take me as a pax w/o endorsement, just an e-ticket print on stock as CO couldn't grab my e-ticket via computer.

When I had it done at A, it took about 30 seconds. Could NW Airlink Employees/Mesaba at DTW not of done this? It's not like I wasn't a NWA Airlink/Mesaba customer either.

On the bright side, I found many lovely, wonderful, and helpful NWA employees in A who assisted me (and went well above and beyond my initial request).

I'd really like to make a complaint or at least raise my concerns to management, but am I in the right in doing so? I suspect I am, but I generally don't like to complain or sound like a whiner -- but this just really rubbed me the wrong way.

Furthermore, I was traveling on an upper bucket yield ticket. Is this how Mesaba treats elite pax on high yield tix these days?

NWA mainline on the other hand has been absolutely wonderful! CO was great too, getting me to the NYC area with the only operational flight to the entire NYC area from DTW on Friday evening, otherwise my trip would of been ruined this past weekend.

I know weather happens, but kudos to NW *mainline* and CO for saving my trip.

Best,

SDF_Traveler

P.S. Sorry for the rant, it was a very frustrating experience. Feedback/comments would be much appreciated.

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

[This message has been edited by SDF_Traveler (edited Dec 09, 2003).]

much of mesaba could be in ruins come a month from now.

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/031208/1844001318_1.html

And this from Star Tribune:http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/4251984.html

Northwest has said that it has been looking at maybe going with another carrier to fly the Avro routes, aside from Mesaba or Pinnacle.

While there is no excuse for their behavior, tensions are extremely high at Mesaba right now.

And 4 oversized carry on bags?!?! I don't know what makes the guy think that he can bring that many on. If he's moving or something, he should ship some of his stuff with fedex or something.

These are very dark days for Mesaba. A once proud company has been driven nearly into the ground by Northwest and it's lackies who call themselves our Senior Leadership Team.
That however, IS NO EXCUSE to not provide the services that we are EMPLOYED for. NO matter how hard it is to put on a smile everyday and go to work (which is it) we owe it to our customers to provide them with safe, clean and reliable transport on behlaf of Northwest. All in all, considering the state of affairs I think my colleagues and I have done a tremendous job. Ontime performance that out rank many, a safety record unparalelled and generally a great group of people. I'm not making excuses, because what happend, is clearly unacceptable. Everytime I fly with FA's with bad attitudes, it's embarassing and I try to overcompensate by trying my hardest to go out of my way to help the folks.

I'm not familiar with gate procedures, but I believe the XJ agents were right in not being able to help you at the gates. I don't believe they have ticket stock in those printers and only the service center or NW has that capability. Since, NW sells the tickets for XJ flights.

One other thing to keep in mind is that Mesaba is running an airline with an absolute skeleton work group. The ramp and gates are always grossly UNDER staffed and overworked.

Was this in LEX by any chance? If not, what station did this occur?

I tracked down some phone numbers for you that might help you out.

This is for the Mesaba customer care department. In the MSP area there are 2 numbers: 651-367-5267 or 5293 or you can call tollfree at 888-657-2221. Our corporate headquarters recently moved to Eagan and if that 888 nuber doesn't work, you can call the main switchboard at 866-885-7030 and push 0 to talk to Dottie, the operator and she'll transfer you to customer care. There is also the nwa.com "talk to us" comment section. I would encourage you to do both however.

Please let us know what happens...

AZJ

It sure was @ LEX -- also, thanks for the information. I'm on lunch at home and making a quick post here I'll post a bit more later. Thanks again!

Best,

SDF_Traveler

P.S. You fly into LEX much?

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

SDF - I had a feeling it was LEX. I haven't been there in a long time since I've been in the MSP system more often than the DTW system as of late. But the times I have been to LEX, it's been generally unapealing. I think a lot of it has to do with being understaffed and stretching a thin workgroup over a large distance. These people have to work the counter, get everyone checked in and then move to the plane and gate to get that work done. But the FA's, is another story. I'm not going to put down my colleagues, but let's just say I would rather work in MEM or MSP than the DTW system (except for DTW ATC and the Worldgateway).

I hope things are better on your next XJ flight and that we can provide better service next time.


AZJ

SDF, I don't really know what is going on btwn NWA and XJ, but it appears that XJ basically gave control of their company in the contract with NWA and NWA in turn seems to be killing XJ.

I personally am a big fan of the ARJ and would hate to see them disappear from the NW fleet, but I would say that it will probably happen sooner than later.

Granted the service and attitude was wrong. I think I would take AZJ's numbers and try to handle it through XJ's customer service department first. If they couldn't or wouldn't make me happy than I would go to NWA. I don't think NWA needs much more ammo to kill XJ completly. With a pendindg pilots strike at XJ and NWA threating to squash the Avro's, it does not look pretty.

It's sad that you had such problems and I can't help but wonder if the tension with NW could be at least partially responsible.

With respect to carryons, four would be a stretch even with the new TSA waiver which allows photographers an extra bag of photographic equipment.

"A once proud company has been driven nearly into the ground by Northwest and it's lackies who call themselves our Senior Leadership Team. "

Remain proud in spite of yoru Senior Leadership Team. Your empoyees have served me outstandingly so many times.

We've been flying Mesaba from LEX most of this year. The whole gestalt is a little funky, but as azj points out, the station is very short on staff. 3 or four of them will be manning the ticket counter, handling the bags, running the jetway, and acting as gate agents, and if there are 2 or 3 flights to deal with, I'm not surprised they get a bit distracted.

I have seen them board the whole plane at once - and don't approve, but it's not the norm. As for not processing upgrades, I haven't seen that. We've missed upgrading twice this year, but both times F was most definitely full.

What's been very tedious lately is not having the jetway to use, even when it's empty. I don't expect that's anything the local people have control over, however.

I am pretty worried about the whole Mesaba situation from a selfish point of view, though my worry is obviously nothing compared to the employees'. One of the FAs on a flight last week had on a "Save the Avros" button. Sure hope it can be done.



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OK... Im the new guy here. What's am Avro???

The Avro, also known as the RJ85, is a four-engine regional jet. The important thing to us as passengers is that Mesaba flies them with only 69 seats, including 16 F seats, and they are very comfortable, even in coach.

You can do a search on Avro and get a lot to read.

GG - what happend to the jetway? Do we still park at the end of the concourse? I haven't been there in ages, so I'm a bit clueless about non jetway use.

Thanks to all for the words of encouragement. Those SAVE THE AVROS buttons were created by one of our super cool gate agents in MSP. She made 50 of them and were gone in a day! Apparantly more are on the way.


AZJ

[This message has been edited by azj (edited Dec 09, 2003).]

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/144391/M/

http://www.seatguru.com/northwest/ARJ.shtml

Thanks.

So far, all I've seen have been CRJs and Saabs. I forgot how much I hate turbo-props!
Noisy *******s

Currently there seem to be two Avros which overnight in LEX. One gets the jetway. They park the other one 'way out on the tarmac, and won't move it even if the jetway plane leaves first.

It seems a bit random which parks where, so if you're unlucky, you can end up climbing down stairs and up stairs several flights in a row, even though you don't always take the same flight. It's not earth-shattering, just tedious, esp. in lousy weather early am or late night.

DL used to overnight 3 jets in LEX, and parked 2 of them so that the jetway could move from one to the other. There may be a good reason Mesaba doesn't do that, but it would be nice.

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[This message has been edited by GG (edited Dec 09, 2003).]