Can someone give me some recent reviews on Northwest Airlines

[Mrs Grumpy]

I did a search and most of the reviews were from a couple of years ago. Please share you recent trips the good and the bad (if any!)

 

[Pinnie]

At the end of June, NWA was cancelling a lot of flights because the pilots had already accumunlated the maximum flight hours per the union contract. The company said it was due to weather, ATC restrictions, etc. The pilots union said it was due to the fact that they don't have enough pilots. Now that the new month has started, things are progressing as "normal" for NWA. According to our local TV station, this issue is bound to repeat itself at the end of July and August.

I have flown NWA many times and yes, I do have a flight scheduled on them at the end of Aug to attend a wedding.

pinnie

 

[Soccerpooh]

We flew with them a few weeks ago to WDW. We flew down 6/8 from DTW when there were a lot of storms, and also a big computer glitch for the airlines. We were late getting on the plane, and then we sat on the runway for 2 hours waiting to take off because of the storms. but I am NOT complaining!!!! The pilot was GREAT about keeping us informed, and explaining why we could not take off. I really appreciated him explaining to us that if we turned back to the gate we had a really good chance on getting cancelled, and that as long as we had enough fuel, sitting and waiting for clearance was the best option. Believe it or not, I was glad- we were a family of 7, and I was really worried about how we were ALL going to get on another flight if we got cancelled. So i give them a . So many times cancellations and delays are due to the weather, and the airlines get blamed. I would fly with them again, but I will say that after hearing reports like the above post alot, I would think twice. But compared to the other airlines we have flown, service wise they were great! Good luck!

 

[Starr W.]

I've been flying NWA for years, US, Europe and the Far East. No worse than any other legacy carrier. Just flew down in early May to MCO and no problems what so ever. Now about a year ago, when we had some bad storms, they cancelled my flight to BWI(taking my son to Washington DC) they wanted to put me on a later flight to BWI, but I asked if they could get me on a flight to Dulles or National. Found 2 seats on a noonish flight to National. So I was only held up 2 hrs rather than 5.

Really nice terminal in Detroit, easy to naviagate(but I'm an airport geek.)

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

They have been having problems lately:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/02/ap3876490.html

 

[Skroops]

Well there is the pilot shortage, and quite a few disgruntled labor groups. They just emerged from bancruptcy, and the executive team took obscene bonuses while the labor groups took forced pay cuts initally enabled by the bancruptcy judge. Like a lot of American workers, they are being forced to work more for less while corporate greed ensues. The smiles you see from the workers may seem a bit forced. The smaller station workers have been replaced with contract workers who earn much less, but also know much less than the workers whose jobs were eliminated.
As a flier, you'll see no amenities other than a drink in coach class. There are no longer peanuts or pretzels with your complimentary drink, and often you will not even get a can of soda unless you specifically ask for it. If you want a snack, you can purchase a can of pringles or a bag of trail mix for $2. At least they aren't a rip off, they are a decent size. There are no pillows, and the few blankets provided don't look very clean. You also wont find magazines or newspapers these days. They fired the cleaners they had and outsourced that to another company, so they airplanes aren't as tidy as they used to be. The flight attendants are hit and miss. Most I've encountered are nice, but I've seen one or two grumpy ones. I guess that goes with any airline, but after their pay cuts they seem less happy. A lot of customers seem less happy too, as they are unfamiliar with all of the TSA regulations, have fears of flying these days, have full flights and expect more from their low fare tickets.
Hope it gets better.
Aren't you glad you asked?
You'll probably have a nice flight!

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

We've flown NWA to Orlando our last few trips and for the most part have encountered very few problems. We just returned from a trip to WDW this past May and the only problem we ran into was a minor delay of 30-45 minutes when boarding the plane in Minneapolis which was attributed to one of the flight crew being late coming in on another flight.

We are flying NWA to Orlando again in October and since we booked the flights they've changed our outgoing flight times three times already - once adding an hour to our stopover in Minneapolis then twice adding additional stopovers in Indianapolis then Detroit which ended up increasing our travel time from 6 hrs to over 12 hours. We just called and they rebooked us on another flight with just the one stop over in MSP and didn't charge us any fees for changing. With three months left, we're just hoping they won't make any further changes.

 

[scoutsmom99]

Living in Minnesota there are not many options for non-stop flights to Orlando (SC and NWA) so I can say I have flown NWA plenty of times. I can only think of one time we were really delayed getting to MCO. I have found the service to be decent. My upcoming flight did change slightly, but it was at the 90 day mark and only by about 30 minutes so it wasn't that bad and I will still be in Orlando before noon.

 

[digitaldevice]

We flew with them only once and it took us 20 sum hours to get to WDW. Our plane broke on take off. It was a very long day that started at 1:00 AM in the morning and after 4 lays overs we got there the next day. It's along story...

 

[pugdog]

We last flew with them in December of 06 and it sucked big time. Now we are in MSP so we fly with them quite a bit. Maybe this last time was a fluke but the way we were treated has made me a SC fan.
First off DW uses a wheelchair and we have never had a problem with the way they handle the chair until this time. First in MCO the ground crew wanted to drive the chair around to the plane. The chair is $25000, no way are inexperienced people going to drive it. We have had other airlines cause damage that way. And I have personally seen some ground crews drive someone elses chair off the conveyor and total it out.
Then when we got back to MSP they refused to bring it up to the plane door. 2 managers and 45 minutes later it finally showed up.
The FA were the worst ever. They could really care less if anyone was on the plane with their attitude. And with the management bonuses that came out recently who knows what type of attitude they have now.
Of course YMMV.

 

[daniel475]

I have flown Northwest serval tmes in the past and here recently, great service. However, I book a flight on frontier airline for april , 2008 to wdw out of memphis,ten. great price on the airline ticket!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

god luck, daniel475

 

[mb1976]

Myself, wife, and our two kids flew on NWA from DEN to Little Rock over memorial weekend. What a disaster! Our flight was late leaving Denver. The weather was perfect. We sat at the gate too long for some unknown reason. We ended up being about forty minutes late into Memphis and has a connection layover about that long. We ran across the airport to our connecting flight. One man got on behind us and they closed the door. Then we sat there and were late taking off. Good thing though, our luggage made it that way. I'm guessing that's why we waited. The trip to LIT was fine. Our flight back was horrible. The plane made it into MEM ontime and the flight was great. We left MEM on a regional jet with warnings from the pilot that the weather in DEN was bad. Some time into the flight I noticed that the plane slowed. I figured we were just slowing because of traffic backed up in Denver. Then we began to descend. Turns out we landed in Witchita, KS. There we sat on the ground for 2.5 hours in that plane! Our kids were aged 4, and 11 mos. at the time. The crew passed out pretzals, a whole 1/2 oz. and water. She would not pass out the pop because she had to service the return flight and they would not stock her in DEN. Then after all that time the pilot came out and said "They have extended the gound halt in Denver. We have a decision to make, you can either stay here or go back to Memphis but, you are not going to Denver." Nearly everyone elected to stay. So the parked and let us off the plane. As soon as we got off the said "United has cancelled thier flight, you most likely will not get out of here even tommorrow." So back to Memphis we went. They did give us pop this time. We were given no help booking or finding a motel, and the flight they gave us was not until 8 pm the next night. To shorten things a bit we ended up getting a late late morning flight to Minnneapolis. Where yes, the arriving plane was late and our schedule into Denver was delayed by about another 1.5 hours. We ran into many, many people who missed connecting flights because their flights were late. One group was trying to get to Alaska to their cruise, they were late and missed some of the ground tours but probably made the boat. They were told their flight was delayed from Jakson MS because of heavy traffic in Memphis. It was total bull. We were at the airport all morning at the air traffic in and out was not that heavy. Now you know why is say NWA=Never Will Again. (I know part of it was due to weather and for that I blame no one there. However, customer service was real bad and nearly all our flights were late as many others were as well. If you can avoid NWA, I would.)

 

[digitaldevice]

mb1976 so sorry to hear of your NWA disaster.
I know first hand how they work at NWA.
Here is our story. Sorry kinda long. Finally got time to type.

We were late taking off also and then when we did start to take off one of the planes engines oil light came on. I know this as I could hear the FA talking about it. So we turned around and went back to the gate to get it fixed and after 5 hours sitting there at the gate they canceled the fight and told us they found metal chips in the oil. They then gave all of us a 10% off coupon for our next flight, LOL and a meal voucher. We then had to fend for ourselves to find another flight. The lines to rebook were long so I looked around and got lucky. There was a nine guy at the Kansas City counter with no line and wanted to help us. He did help us out, the only one that did.

This was our day of flying with two kids that have never flown. We started at Milwaukee (MKE) then to Kansas City (MCI) then layed over for 2 hours then got on the exact same plane and flew out of Kansas City to Minneapolis (MSP) where we found out we were put on standby by the guy in Kansas City. That was great to know. By the way the Kansas City airport sucked big time. Luckly the other connecting flight did not make it to Minneapolis so everyone on standby did get on the plane in Minneapolis and finally got to Orlando (MCO) the next morning.