A Letter to Northwest

Yes... they did it to me again...

"Is Northwest just having trouble maintaining their planes, in general, or just the ones I get to travel on?

Of the past 4 times I have traveled on Northwest, which has been in less than a two month period, I have missed three connections. Though one was weather related, the others were extreme maintenance issues. I have been delayed even more on second segments due to maintenance or waiting for other passengers. But the most recent trip took the cake.

I had a round trip flight to JAX. On the way down to JAX, my IND-DTW segment was smooth and on time. My DTW-JAX segment had a two hour delay due to maintenance. It would’ve been nice to be at my hotel before midnight since I had to lead a meeting first thing the next morning. But I initially shrugged it off since I still made it to JAX. However, the trip back completely flipped my attitude about that delay.

In leaving JAX to head to DTW, we had an hour delay due to the lavatory malfunctioning, which at the end of that delay, they merely slapped an “Out of Order” sign on the door. I only had a 55 minute layover. But I didn’t fret because I thought we’d make up some time in the air and though tight, I might still make the last leg. Besides, it was the last flight out of DTW to IND for the night, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve been on that flight or another ‘last flight’ where they held the plane for incoming connecting passengers that had delays. I thought for sure I’d be close enough that they would do that. Oh how I was wrong. The best part, is when I checked the status, it had left the gate, but hadn’t left the ground yet. So I missed it by mere minutes.

Why is it I can always by ‘inconvenienced’ to wait for delayed connecting passengers but on this day, they had to leave on the minute they were scheduled to, full knowing they had at least one connecting passenger about to land?

So I had no way home via air, and had to be in the office this morning. I had to resort to renting a car to drive home the 4 hours to IND so I can make my meeting in the AM. Of course, since I had to rent at the counter without a reservation, they charged me a pretty premium. So there was another $200 out of my pocket that my company will probably not reimburse since I was supposed to be on a flight at that time, instead.

I used to defend Northwest when people would go off on how horrible they were and untimely their flights were. I never had problems like this until recently. Now I’m starting to understand where they were coming from."

Let's see how they respond this time. :P

UPDATE 4/8/08: Wow... they really came through this time. Every time I get down on Northwest, their Customer Service comes through and ultimately reminds me why I continue to fly with them - they do, ultimately, take care of their passengers, though it may be after some harsh reality. Not only did they throw 20,000 miles my way, they are reimbursing me for the rental car I had to get between DTW and IND.