I am an ex US Air Force crew chief, working on F-15 fighter jets. Currently, I am a stay at home da...
I am an ex US Air Force crew chief, working on F-15 fighter jets. Currently, I am a stay at home dad, and my wife is in the military. I have a degree in Aircraft Maintenance Technology and in Advertising. I like to trip little kids in the park.
Member since:19.01.2005
Reviews:12
Members who trust:1
One thing that I never really understood about the military is the need to use commercial airlines to send a large number of people to a location, when we have aircraft that are required to fly everyday anyway. It would seem only logical to just load those aircraft with people and send them on a training mission to that location instead. I mean, I don't see how that could hurt the training any. But the Air Force obviously hasn't totally figured that out, because they are constantly hiring outside carriers such as American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and finally Northwest Airlines to fly their people around.
As I was in the military for a term of 6 years and have just recently gotten out, I have been on so many airplanes with so many different airlines just to go on deployments, go home to see family, or go on vacation, and of course move, that it's rediculus.
Customer Service You can pretty much summarize the quality of Northwest Airlines with it's customer service, as it's pretty hard not to notice it. I have never seen a group of people with such big attitudes in my life. I have flown on countless flights, with so many different carriers, and the only real thing that stuck out in my head about the flights, was that I was going to have to fly on the dreaded Northwest flight again. Everyone always used to talk about the dreaded
flight on Northwest Airlines, because the service and the ride itself was so horrible.
When you go to check in, you aren't greeted with a smile, no hello, nothing, just a "how many" or something of that nature. I don't mind this when the line is long, but I am rarely ever in a line, since I arrive so early, so it would seem that a simple, "hi, welcome to Northwest Airlines, how many bags will you be checking today?" would be in order. I could even settle for, "Hi. How many?" Anything, but a simple demand for numbers would be nice.
Once you get to your terminal, it's not much better. The clerks at the counter there, don't seem to know a thing about anything. It's like they were manufactured in the airport, but weren't allowed to learn about the airport and have to sit in that spot all day long. They can't help you with things like where bathrooms are, who sells phone cards, or anything really. And if they can help you, it's normally with attitude. It's not like they have to walk you to the location, they just have to tell you.. how simple is that? Apparently it's quite difficult!
On the plane, the service is much better, however, the attendants are a lot more aggressive with Northwest than on any other airline. Instead of asking you for a bag that you are trying to keep down below that they want up top, they just tell you that they need it, no please, no thank you, no smile, no nothing. They have to keep the order, but that's just rediculous.
On a flight that I took from Seattle to Detroit, I remember a lady next to me had asked if she could have apple juice and orange juice mixed together in a cocktail and instead of doing it for her, the flight attendant told her that they aren't equipped to make any special drinks beyond their standard offerings. How hard is it just to do it? I don't care if it's not on your list of beverages, just make the customer happy and mix them together. I could understand if they came in cans, which would obviously waste half of each can, but they were in large containers that could easily be poured.
I remember asking one of the flight attendants, if I could have a pillow on my flight from Detroit to San Antonio and she squawked back, "if you needed a pillow, you should have grabbed it before we were in the air." She got me a pillow, but that remark was more than uncalled for.
Cleanliness Overall, the aircraft that I have flown on are extremely clean. If it's one thing that they do right at Northwest, it's keeping their aircraft extremely clean. I didn't notice any stains anywhere on the planes that I was on and generally, I find them all over the place on American.
The terminal was also pretty clean. While I understand this is more the airport's responsibility, it is also up to the Airline to report any issues that they may have. They did a great job of doing this, and I felt pretty confident about getting on the airplane with it's cleanliness every time.
Comfort Northwest makes virtually no effort in ensuring your comfort. While they do offer pillows, they don't have nearly enough to give out, if more than half of the aircraft want pillows.
The seats themselves are somewhat hard and lack any real substance to them. It's sort of like sitting on a semi-adjustable rock.
Foot space and arm space is something that I could only dream of, however, I must say that they are much better than that of Alaska Airlines, who thinks it's okay to just jam people in like sardines in coach. Northwest does at least have a little more space than them, which does help, but it's still not nearly enough.
Entertainment On most of the flights that I took, Northwest had no offerings as far as entertainment was concerned. With their flights being so much more expensive, I figured that they would have at least something to offer, but rarely did they ever have anything.
On a couple of the flights that I was on, they offered the same type of digital movie player that is used on Alaska Airlines. Pretty much it's a small little screen that holds a bunch of dvds, music videos, tv shows, etc in it's memory so that you can watch them while you are on the plane. It's a pretty cool concept and it costs about $10 per person and comes with a set of headsets as well.
The problem here is that there are rarely ever enough digital players to cover all of those who want them and I have been stiffed on two ocassions to get one, making the ride much worse than I thought it was originally going to be.
Northwest however, does seem to like to entertain you by swaying around and dipping and diving all over the place, as they do that quite a bit. You can tell the obvious difference between the turbulence and the pilots just messing around, because only on this airline, does the plane glide up and down like that. The turbulence has more of a constant bumpy feeling, but this is much smoother and seemless, almost with purpose.
Overview Northwest thinks that customers are worthless and that having them is one big joke obviously, because they take absolutely no care of them whatsoever. I have found them to be completely rude and worthless when it comes to customer related issues and they make matters worse than try to solve problems.
The comfort on their aircraft is pretty bad, and would be better if they have some entertainment to take your mind off of it, however, they offer little to no entertainment, making turbulence your last resort for the remainder of the flight as far as entertainment goes.
Unfortunately flying with Northwest is like winning the lottery, because you don't know whether or not someone is going to go to jail for punching out an employee of the company or if you're even going to live through your flight. You might as well flip a coin and pick the outcome.
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Luckily for me, I have yet to experience the discomfort of this airline and hopefully never.
Quakerman 19.01.2005 12:13
I have only flown with NWA twice, Toronto-Detroit and Detroit-London. Never again. The only good thing was in fact the DC9 and DC10, both of which offer two seats abreast, so two people can sit together without a middle seat. The food was awful, the entertainment worse, and the staff surly. Harry
tomhughes 19.01.2005 11:39
Interesting review, I guess regarding the comfort issues that could be down to some very old DC-9s and 10s that NWA still fly, however there's no excuse for poor cabin service. Cheers, Tom.
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Advantages: Member of Flying Dutchman Frequent Flyer Program, Extensive USA network Disadvantages: Attendents don't give wine to under 18/21 yr olds, Delays, Nothing Special, Legroom not brilliant, Lack of Inflight Entertainment.
NESMA 14.04.2001 (22.04.2001)
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Connoisseur_Haggler 07.07.2001 (07.07.2001)
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