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Northwest Airlines

Northwest Airlines • Ticketing snafus • Luggage lost, stolen, destroyed • General hostility • Disgruntled Employees • Northwest vs. KLM • Pray for food --- News • Delta, Northwest Complete Merger • Delta, Northwest Merger Faces Heavy Chop • Troubled Northwest Strikes New Deal With Pilots • A Seething Summer of Discontent for Northwest Airlines • Northwest Passengers Face Uncertain Summer • Pilot Shortages Plague Northwest Passengers • Machinists Pact May Head Off Northwest Airline Strike • Northwest Hopes to Cancel Employee Contracts • Delta, Northwest File for Bankruptcy • Northwest Flying Despite Strike • Northwest Warns Of Bankruptcy • Strike Looms At Northwest • Northwest Seeks Replacement Flight Attendants • Northwest Pushes Up Fares

An icy fossil that survives only because Southwest apparently dislikes cold weather, Northwest is perhaps the most rigid U.S. airline when it comes to making even the slightest accommodation to the customers who keep it in business.

The complaints in this section illustrate how unnecessarily miserable travel can be if one chooses the wrong carrier.

Here are a few of the more recent consumer comments:

Art of St. Peteresburg FL (04/01/09)
Placed reservation and paid for 2 tickets to Europe 54 days in advance to secre discount price and seats for two together on the 7 plus hour flights. Received confirmation mesage with seating 3.11.09. On 3.22.09, in a unsigned email, informed flights changed - sorry. Noted that seating was now unassigned on a later flight through Detroit vice Minn. Every online attempt to assign seating on this new flight resulted in premium seat charges.

Calls to reservation agents (9 individuals!) got no where except angry. It was my fault and I should know that NWA doesn't have to give any seat assignments - just passage. Finally allowed to speak to a supervisor - Terri - who was not into customer relations. Pay for the up graded seats, take a refund and rebook at 250% higher fare rate.......oh, but it appears you can (still) travel on the original flight through Minn but same story on the higher priced seats! Since the original flight was not changed, seats were still showing online and the only options offered were to pay more to travel together with my wife, I can only assume this is a scam to discourage low fare buyers and free up seating they can sell for higher prices.

The alternatives offered would double or triple the cost of this trip over amounts already paid. I have no confidence NWA will honor the itenery confirmed and will not find a means to force us off the flights or to agree to pay for the seats I bought 54 days in advance @ 100% more . This borders on fraud, clearly deceptive practices by a US flag carrier. SHAME!

Sidonie of New Orleans, LA March 29, 2009

Sidonie of New Orleans LA (03/29/09)
My husband and I were treated as rudely as humanly possible, then we were bumped off of a flight that we had tickets for but supposedly because we were the last to get these tickets we were able to be bumped off of the flight. The woman Margo Harned was spewing venom it seemed like from the beginning with threats of calling over the police, who I started talking to and who detest this woman. They actually do not fly anymore because of what they have witnessed at Northwest. So we are now at a hotel and will fly home tomorrow with a 7am flight. I am completly disgusted with what cutomers have to deal with. Atleast they gave us a refund for the 30 that it took to just book our bags.

Well, it was absolutly tramautic to deal with these women. They completly took advantage of Northwests rights that have been so inflated since 9/11. Economically I wont' be able to teach tomorrow and I won't be able to set up my students work at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Someone else is going to have to cover for me at the last minute. But I think the biggest consequence is being lied to or the fact that they witheld information. I still have no idea why I was really bumped from the flight.

Hubertus of Crawfordville, FL March 28, 2009

Hubertus of Crawfordville FL (03/28/09)
On 6/19/08 I had to change my flight from Tallahassee to the Netherlands to a flight from Tallahassee to Switzerland. I arranged this via a NWA customer service representative. She told me that I had a year to use the value of the unused ticket to buy another ticket. On 3/27/09 my wife called NWA to book a ticket with NWA from Tallahassee to Amsterdam. We had almost booked two tickets (one with World Perks and one with the value of the unused ticket from last year via Joy. When she checked on the total price she suddenly said we could not buy the 1230 ticket with the value from the unused ticket because the new ticket base value needs to be equal or greater than the base value of the old unused ticket. The baseline of the unused ticket was 1383. My wife asked if she could just let go of the difference and leave it at that but no she had to look for a ticket which was more expensive. The next level up was 1630.

This rule did not make sense to us and Joy was not able to explain the rule to my wife so she asked for Joy's supervisor. By this time my wife had been on the phone with Joy for more than 40 minutes. After waiting for another 15 minutes her supervisor (Caroline) came on the line and told my wife that we had a much bigger problem. We could not use the unused ticket anymore because we should have booked a new ticket within a year from the date that we bought it, which was in 2/18/08. My wife explained to her that we were told on 6/19/08 that we could use the value of the unused ticket a year from 6/19/09. Caroline told me that I was not the expert and she and Joy were so they knew the rules and there was nothing that could be changed.

Well apparently all the three experts we had talked to about this unused ticket all interpreted nwa rules differently. In 2005 we already accepted a loss of 1500 + rebooking fee for a ticket from Delta because they closed the gate right in front of us while we had the ticket in our hands and were told that we had to buy another ticket. So I guess the takeover of NWA by Delta means that we are now getting the same poor customer service from NWA as we were already used to by Delta. I really hope there will be a class action suit. They deserve it.

Jamie of Eyota, MN March 23, 2009

Jamie of Eyota MN (03/23/09)
Same thing happened to me that happened to Sonya in San Fransisco... I have a ticket purchased for my daughter on NWA for travel between MSp and LAX in September. I purchased the tickets at 399 with a ticket agent on the phone to make sure the confirmation would be linked with another reservation so she wouldn't be in her own seat away from family. A month or so later I found the same flight 60 cheaper so I called to see if anything could be done. The gal said that yes, she could refund money in increments of 50. And since it was just 60 she suggested that I wait to see if it was reduced further so that I wouldn't have to wait for another 50 drop. There was no mention of a fee for doing this. So I waited and now its 80 cheaper. I decided to call and get refunded. Except this time they said they could do this but it would be a fee of 150 so I would actually OWE NWA. I couldn't beleive it so I asked to speak with another only to have them confirm the situation. Bait and switch.

Consequensces are that we have less money for vacation and were lied to by an official agent of NWA. Their lack of consistant training shouldn't result in my loss.

Sandra of Tamuning, OTHER March 21, 2009

Sandra of Tamuning OTHER (03/21/09)
February 28 2009, I had the worst flight experience in all my years of flying. I am a Platinum Elite member, flying Northwest for about 19 years. This occured in a paid business class seat Before take -off on flight #30 form Narita to Honolulu , a flight attendant asked for my meal request. I asked for the fish with the caveat that I was not to be awakened if I was asleep. I also asked her if the meal could be saved for me for later. She said that entree which was cooked fish would be saved. When I woke up 3 hrs later I asked for the entree, the same flight attendantwent to get it and then came back 5 minutes later to ask if I still wanted it since she felt the delayed time was too long to keep the fish. I told her Iunderstood but I still wanted the fish and no she did not have to reheat it.

About another five minutes later the purser' Samuel comes and askagain if I want the fish. I reiterated that I did. He said in a raised voice Well okay, but it has been four hours and I would not eat it.. He offered me the alternate entrees which were the chicken or beef. I told him I understood that but I would rather have the fish. 10 to 15 minutes later Iwant to the galley and asked Samuel about the meal and said they need not take the trouble to reheat it. He then said that they were looking for it and couldnot find it. Five minutes pass and he came and told me that they called Honolulu and the captain said I could not be served the fish and that the captain would speak to me after the flight.I did not say a wordto him.

The flight attendants then statted serving breakfast. Samuel placed my tray down and without bothering to ask me what I wanted to drink went on to the nextcustomer. A while later after using the restroom I looked into the galley right next to the rest room and asked the the 2 flight attendants the name of the one thatinitially took our meal requests. Both said they forgot or did not know. I saw the attendant in question a few rows back and went back to speak with her. Samuel comes up to me and told me that I need to go back to my seat andno I could not have the flight attendant's name. I went back to my seat .Samuel goes back to the galley in front, and from that distance ina raised voice says I cannot have the fish since it was fours old and he was not going to let me create trouble. He said he would have someone inHonolulu meet the flight. From the time he told me to go back to my seat ,which I did without saying a word I maintained my silence and did not respond to him. As I was exiting the aircraft, Samuel stopped talking to the agent meeting the plane and again in a raised voice points to me and says..She's the one: As I was one of the first peiple to get off needless to say all focus was in front.

The agent said he wanted to talk to me. i told him i had a connecting flight and he could come along. He said ther were sheriffs waitingfor me sice they received a call from the captain that I was creating a disturbance. i handed my passport ot the sheriif on request while being thecynosure of all the passangers exitting the plane some of whom could have been my pateints. I spoke to the sherrif and then to the agent. The agent said it was all a misunderstanding, told the sheriff he did not need their services and that I was free to leave. No apology made! The fact that some could have sheriffs summoned because he lost his temper with no guidelines or corraboration from other flight attendants is scary. Our licensing laws state that a felony or disturbing public safety can result in a loss of license. I have spoken to several pilots and flight crew since this incident and they expressed total disbelief that it was blown so out of proportion.

Humiliation, shame, acid reflux nightmares, loss of sleep. possibility of losing license to practice

Stephen of Hartford, CT March 20, 2009

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