DL/NW Merged Stations to Avoid
 

we've heard of many problems at some merged stations so I thought we should start a list so we can share with each other which stations are a mess and either avoid DL/NW at them or plan accordingly

So far we've heard of

Stations with not enough staff or training and lines laid out in a manner that make it impossible to navigate to the correct line

BWI
ORF
DFW
LAX
DEN
LAS
MCO
TPA
BNA
AUS
SFO
TUL
PDX
YYC
RDU
MDW
PHX
SEA

Stations not merged but everyone's in DL uniforms and point the finger to the "Other" DL

DTW
MSP

add DEN to the list for TAs -- the only person who knew what she was doing was ex NW ... the Delta staff seemed confused and were no help.

Bob H

LAS

There were basically six lines there on Saturday. First self check-in where you had to wait for someone to tag your bags, but only certain agents could tag for each airline. They also had lines for coach self check-in with the same process. And then there were the international/help lines.

I was first in line for the first class bag tag line, and waited for 10 minutes on Saturday, because the NW agents were tied up the whole time with passengers who had some issue. I would have gotten through faster had I been in the coach line...they pulled up at least 7 passengers while I waited.

Finally, an agent from the help line asked if anyone was on the 11:55am flight to MSP, and when I was the only one who raised their hand (now 11am), she looked at me with a disdainful look.

LAS was hit and miss even before NW came over to Delta.

Delta does have some great agents at LAS (there have been a couple of times where the check-in counter at LAS has called my cell phone to let me know of delays and they've rebooked me already on another flight, and to not show up to the airport as early now).

But those great experiences are weighed out by the many times I've had to wait 10 minutes or so as the only person in the F line, as SomeGuy points out. The position of the F line (on the far left) was a tough spot for some agents to see (which is a pathetic excuse...), and often the (long) general line would end right in front of them, while the F line was a good 30 feet away.

At least LAS does support the boarding passes on mobile phones now - I'll be using that on Sunday afternoon.

MCO is a mess! Do everything you can to avoid having to spend any time around the ticket counter. Signage is terrible, especially if you're a NWA flier, and the need to lug your luggage back to where you came from makes it like a obstacle course.

There are a few stations that haven't been integrated yet (HNL for one, in a few weeks), that you should also keep a look out for because they're certain to cause a headache.

TPA and BNA are both bad. It is ok once you get in the right line, but if you have never been there before you can not tell what part of the ticket counter to go to. So everyone is stuck in one big line and then has to wait on another machine.

Add AUS to the list. No more elite line, chaos and 60 minute waits to check luggage for morning flights, too few kiosks, very harried agents who say they were given little training on NW systems when the desks merged.

FWIW, MSP can be ugly from the Delta side if you don't know where to look (not well-signed at all if you're on a Delta-South flight; for elites, it's at the far right end of the elite lobby area, but it took me a few tries to learn this and was passed around quite a bit by several agents...).

Plenty of kiosks if that's what you need, but if you need to see a live agent, it gets dicey.

IAH but only Delta side
 

Delta lines are horrible at times, hit or miss I guess. The NW agents try and weed the NW passengers our of the Delta line and the Delta customers say they will fly NW if they can get out of the never ending line.

Looking at this thread, should we start another thread with locations that we shouldn't be concerned with?!

Which major metro airport's merged station is there that shouldn't be avoided when needing to do in-person international ticketing?

This brings up the question of what are all of the stations serviced by DL or NW?

Then groups those by those which were already merged (and which of those were outsourced, or DL/NW), then toss in those that are going through merger, those that are going through merger, then color code each accordingly (which appears to be driven by the efforts of the station manager).

The issue here isn't quality... it's change and difference in predictability.

I can see (ironically) it's the middle-tier airports that are going to suffer the most loss of predictability. The small airports were already merged (so we knew the quality of service to expect), and the hubs can shuffle the pax around accordingly.

I'm imagining that there's a thread over in DL right now, along the line of "I went to the DTW A center lounge, and the NW people wouldn't help me".

See my intial comment about DTW being a finger pointing hub....unfortunately as a NW Gold I've experienced that myself on a few occasions

from the sound of this it I'm assuming IAH isn't merged yet, if I'm wrong let me know and I'll update the first post