Hey all...

This is actually a good post to read if you want a comprehensive view of NW, elite status, and the WC. It's mostly me kvetching, but there's some probative value in here as well

This week, I had a trip LAX-MEM-ATL and return (same routing). The only thing that left on time was the first segment (LAX-MEM). Me, thinking no way my upgrade would clear as a lowly silver, indulged myself in the complimentary libations in the WC, and then promptly proceeded to board when the announcement came. While boarding, the computer beeped at me, and I was actually pissed. I had nice 5F picked out. Turns out my bf upgrade cleared! When I got to MEM, my connection was delayed a few minutes, but not enough to cause me great stress. However, my rental car siutation was a big snafu (reserved mid-size, got a minivan, told him it was unacceptable, he told me too bad). It was a quick flight to ATL, and my upgrade had precleared the day before.

The return trip, thus far, has been a disaster. The high note: my upgrades cleared all the way through to LA! The low note: my outbound flight from ATL cancelled. I was a little irked that I never got the flight status updates sent to my cell, and when I asked the gate agents at the adjoining gates to help me, they said somebody would "be over in a few minutes." The worst of it was that they didn't seem to be doing anything! When they came over, they told me that my rebooking through MSP would get me in at 1905, as opposed to the 1640 I originally had. I asked to be put on a nonstop DL flight (I was supposed to be back to work tonight), but there were no open seats. I find out from a DL agent that the only flight with seats was leaving as the agent told me she couldn't help me. Twice, NW could have gotten me out and twice they didn't. I went to the PC, hauled out my laptop and jotted a quick email to them.

The worst was yet to come. The outbound flight to MSP was delayed 45 minutes or so. When I boarded, I found out I got to sit next to Mr. Fat Man! He was overly nice and bit condescending too. He really got on my nerves. He had to jump out of his middle seat to help some middle aged lady stow her carry on, asked me if I knew how to open the exit door, and when we deplaned and I politely excused myself (tight connection) he looked at me and wanted to know, "Oh, are you connecting?" Duh. I would have stayed put if I wasn't. The whole way I non-verbally fought for my space. Every time I moved my arm off the armrest, I had to be careful not to get elbowed in my side. It was tricky to keep my arm planted the whole way.

Anyway, when I thought I barely made my tight connection, I found out the plane was delayed an hour. No biggie. Went to the WC for a couple of drinks and check the monitors. Odd, no mention of the inbound flight. Come to find the aircraft was on an mx delay. 30 minutes after the promised update, we're told another update in 30 minutes. Well, a check of the monitors a few minutes later showed an 8pm departure (originally 1715). Ok fine. Then we get notified of a gate swap. The sucky part was it was changed from G2 to G17 (a long way, and much farther from the WC). I went to the agent and inquired, "New plane?" Yup. Hey, are my seat assignments still good? Lesseee... Yeah, but why do you want 40B? Let's see if I could do better. Thanks, but unless you have anything else in row 40 open, I'll keep it. On the -300 it's an exit row seat, and I'll take the legroom. "Sir, on this aircraft 33 is the exit! I'll give you 33C." Okay thanks. Is this a downgrade to a -200? "Yeah, you guessed it." Okay, do you want volunteers? "Let me see... Yup!" Okay, can you take care of me hear and send me on my way? "Sure, but let me call the gate." Gate said no, go see them. <Trecks down to G17>

Boy was that place a mad house! Offered compesation: Free r/t ticket or $300, flight out tommorrow. The gate was poorly staffed, and they had to accomodate 20-40 people, boarding first those with seat assignments. Then they went down the list. They were making efforts to accomodate elites on the flight first. Well, nothing was being done to accomodate those who VDB'd. I asked numerous times if the WC could take care of me. Nope, please hang out here. Finally, an hour after boarding, a well dressed woman shows up. I told her that I'd love to get out of her hair, and please tell me that the WC "could take of me." Yeah, no problem! However, the delay was getting so long, and by that point they had fixed the -300 that they were going to use, and then decided to put it on the next flight which meant they could accomodate everybody that evening. I said great, but I already made overnight plans with friends, so get my butt down to the WC and I'll get out of here.

WC says they could do the rebooking but not the voucher. I said BS, and if we needed to get back to the gate, they wouldn't have sent us down here. Turns out the WC agent just didn't know how to do VDB vouchers. Well, I looked at her again and told her that the gate agent would have a coronary if she sent us back, and besides, it was a hike. I got my VDB voucher.

One guy said that had he known the vouchers would have taken that long to process, he would have just skipped it and got on the plane. But the funny part was that the agents were taking so long to process everybody and board the plane, it was only about ten minutes later when the next flight was scheduled to depart. The VDB was a smarter move!

The same guy told me that he'll never fly NW again. I looked at him and said you might want to reconsider that. I told him that I could see he was justifiably pissed, but that in all of the markets I fly, NW runs the -9 where every other carrier runs CRJ's and ERJ's. Further, if you don't care about the plane types, that the operators who run the commuters do a consistently worse job than mainline does. I told him I knew because I used to work for one.

Oh well. I wrote a quick note to NW when I was still at ATL, and they'll get another one. I'm not really going to ask here what I should "expect" for compensation, because I don't believe complaint letters should be written based on expected compensation like an ala carte menu, but based on the idea that the carrier should do what it can to keep each flyer happy.

The funny part is that I'm not as pissed about the snafu's as much as I am pissed about the customer service (or lack there of) related issues.

Sorry to hear about the irregular operations, but "flight from he!!" ?

Usually a "flight from he!!" would involve an unplanned overnight in some intermediate city, maybe a diversion and/or a late-night rental car from some far-flung alternate airport, or an involuntary denied boarding that caused you to miss a big meeting or event.

You're still getting home tonight, and only 2.5 hours late at that, considering all that could happen, I think you did good.

I think you missed my edit, because I accidentally hit the submit button. In case you didn't miss my edit:

1. I took an unplanned overnight in MSP. Perhaps I may have been able to get on the next flight, but at the point I was informed of the upgauge on the later flight, I already had overnight accomodations made with some family friends.

2. I was originally supposed to get into LAX at 1640. After the snafu, the flight I VDB'd off of departed 3.5 hours late and landed 3 hours late, finally arriving LAX at 2210 which is 5.5 hours later than originally planned. I agree, 2.5 hours late was nothing.

3. I had to be to work at 2100, and earlier if possible. My original flight allowed plenty of slack for that, had the reroute have been on time, I would have been pretty close to on time. Once I realized how late the flight was going to be, I took the bump to make it worth my while. My bump is worth more than I make in an 8 hour work day. It took them them 1 hour and 15 minutes to board that plane. Had I not taken the bump, I would have been either 1) Late or 2) Called in sick, and the bump is more compensation than I would get otherwise.

4. My upgrades to and from the west coast NEVER clear in advance. I was pretty pissed that the first flight cancelled. Yeah, they're complimentary space available, and yeah it's not that great, but it beats coach by a long shot and the one time you get them and then lose them just gets to you.

5. The way they handled the downgrade was just absolutely awful. No two ways about it.

6. I used to work for the airlines. I've seen just about everything imaginable, and if I haven't seen it, it won't suprise me. What gets my goat is how it's handled, and there were several instances on this flight where I feel NW really dropped the ball. Do I know everything? No. But why you don't use every agent that is available to handle a huge mess is beyond me.

That was a long, relatively complicated read.

So should the summary of what you said be that "irregular operations consume too much time for both NWA passengers and NWA employees"?

If it's any consolation, I had to stand in line twice (for at least two hours each go through) at the ticket counter to get rerouted when NW 1 from LAX to NRT got cancelled yesterday. It was a massive mess, with frayed nerves on all sides, and the agents still had to check in the AMS / DTW / MSP people all while trying to reroute & accomodate. It's amazing anything can get done when things like this happen.

It'd be nice if the airline kept agents "on-call" for when irregular ops happen.

It was a long, relatively complicated day! (Besides, what good are NW sucks! My flight was delayed three hours! I'm never flying them again! posts without details?) Especially because today my rebooked flight from MSP-LAX was delayed two hours again for mx reasons. I made a brief comment to the woman in the WC along the lines of "this whole cost cutting thing sucks... Online checkin, online booking is okay, but when push comes to shove and you need a human, you can't get one."

You're right about the oncall agents. I think you could get away with having a bunch of people on duty, unpaid, for one week at a time. How? Give them travel benefits. Enough people would eat it up.