Delayed 24 in DTW - Recommendations???
 

My wife and I had an MCO-DTW-LGW segment booked in economy class on Tuesday, February 26. This was the day of power outages in South Florida that caused blackouts in some parts of Central Florida as well. Additionally, snow storms were in the Detroit area causing flight delays. The plane arrived in Orlando late and delayed the departure of the outgoing plane.

Itinerary information was as follows:

Scheduled MCO departure was 3:44pm, actual departure from the gate was 5:20pm, actual takeoff was 7:15pm.

Scheduled DTW arrival was 6:32pm, actual arrival was 9:20pm

Scheduled LGW departure was 9:25pm, actual departure was 9:21pm.

By the time the plane was boarded, thunderstorms were beginning to move into the Orlando area. The pilot decided to pull away from the gate and get in the queue. According to the pilot, planes were being allowed to take off by heading towards Tampa and near the Gulf of Mexico, however, our aircraft was not equipped with a raft, and thus was stuck in the queue until the thunderstorms passed. After waiting on the tarmac for almost 2 hours we were finally airborne. Needless to stay, the flight arrived late in Detroit and docked at gate A70. I called the flight status line as soon as we were on the ground and discovered that our connecting flight to London Gatwick was still on schedule and departing from gate A50.

My wife and I sprinted to A50 only to find no NWA agent at the gate and the security door closed. Although, the plane had still not left the gate. We inquired at an adjacent gate and the agent stated that the doors could not be reopened. I called the flight status 800 number and discovered that the flight departed 4 minutes early. We were surprised that NWA agents did not hold the plane since I'm sure they had access to our arrival information, but I guess NWA values on-time departures more than customer care.

We then went to the customer service center and after waiting for about 40 minutes we found out that the next flight from DTW to LGW was 24 hours later. I had the agent search different airports and airlines for possible earlier arrival in London (any airport), but it seemed that all of the flights were overnight. So, we reluctantly accepted the same flight 24 hours later and received no lodging voucher or compensation for our trouble. We had prepaid for our hotel in London and it was non-refundable, so we were forced to pay for one unused night there as well as one night at a Detroit hotel. Since the delay was most likely entered as weather related, do we have any recourse?

Since returning from our trip a couple days ago, I have not yet contacted NWA regarding this issue. If anyone can recommend a course of action to take that may result in some type of compensation in the form of either vouchers or miles, it would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks.

My guess is that since your delay was weather related you are out of luck. Some say that is why there is travel insurance. You could try a note to TTU and perhaps get some miles for the delay but if you are looking for compensation for your extra night in DTW I do not think you will be successful.

Unfortunately the hard facts of traveling in 2008.

Yep, I think the best you can hope for is 5,000-10,000 miles in your account.

(emphasis mine)
With weather related problems: no. What I don't understand is that you had the option of flying to LON without having to take an overnight in DTW. Why didn't you take it? IMHO, unless I'm misunderstanding you, you should have had no recourse because you agreed to the 24 hour delay when it could have been a lot less. That said, I'm sure NW will throw some miles your way.

I don't think the OP had an option other than overnight since there are no more Europe bound flights after 9:20 to AMS and 9:25 to LGW. The next Europe bound flight would have been the 4pm to AMS the next day, which may not have been much better than waiting for the direct LGW flight at 9:25 (only once a day). It also does not sound like it would have been possible to reroute around DTW since the MCO delay was on the tarmac and there was no way to know prior to boarding.

On-time departures ARE customer care. And on-time departures are customer care for the many over the inconvenience of the few.

Either way, they will never reopen the boarding door - and given the firmness with which I have encountered that policy enforced, I don't think it's an NWA policy but a TSA policy.

I think what the OP means is that all of the flights for that night had departed, and there are no daylight flights, so an overnight flight departing the next night was the only option.

The departures to LGW, CDG, DUS are all scheduled in the 9:00-9:30 pm bank. There was a 10:10 to AMS (757) that probably left while travelbot was in the rebooking queue. Calling (the Elite line, if applicable) while standing in line, or going to the AMS gate, might or might not have been helpful in getting on that flight.

The only other DTW-LON departure later than that is the BA flight to LHR. There are a limited number of connection options on non-Skyteam carriers (BA, AC, UA, AA) that would have arrived in LON the following evening, but would still require an overnight in DTW or elsewhere in the US (or YYZ). Good luck getting rebooked on one of those for a weather delay, even if there are seats available.

Looks like tev9999 types faster than me...

Okay, mea culpa for the misunderstanding on my part.

I have been on multiple flights where the door has been re-opened within the past few months, including MSP-SJC and MSP-LGW.

i think there was a thread on this board about the same thing happening.

on another note, allowing the door to open back up, and putting the OP on the flight would probably not have delayed the flight, because it was leaving early, and the 15 minutes most that it would take would be made up in the air.

Hmmm I can understand domestic, but Int'l... I'm surprised at that with all the paperwork and DHS documentation that has to happen it got re-opened.

Did you at least head into Ann Arbor for the day? The cost of the rental car to get to Ann Arbor could easily be offset by cheaper hotel costs in Ann Arbor (Hampton Inns) plus it's not a bad place to spend a day walking and eating.

Ann Arbor in the middle of winter is not exactly how I would want to spend a day. Nothing underground like some major cities (Toronto) to walk around shopping.

Another pitfall of A2: It's home to UofM...

And the fact that people refer to it as A2.