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Author
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Topic: Flying is overrated (AKA: Northwest Airlines YOU SUCK!)
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-15-2007 06:09 AM
quote: Allison Parsons
Long story short, I'm not flying Airfrance ever again.
At least they didn't guillotine any complaining passengers!
I've heard similar horror stories about most of the big, state-owned, former state-owned or still heavily subsidised European flag carriers. KLM, SAS and Lufthansa still have reasonably good reputations, but frequent business travelers tell me that British Airways, Air France, Aer Lingus, Alitalia and Iberia are to be avoided at all costs.
quote: Paul Mayer
I don't think you'll need to worry much about Northwest, at least on their international routes. Those routes are the money makers, and they'll give them priority staffing wise. But once you get into the domestic system, at least at the end of the month/year...
The tight-fisted so-and-sos make you pay $5 for a beer! ![[Mad]](mad.gif)
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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!
Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 07-15-2007 07:04 PM
Heh heh, that's what my airline does. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) We charge for everything on the flight including checked bags, assigned seats, and any food or drink other than the aircraft's tap water. Maybe we should do what that infamous Brand-X airline TV spot says we do and charge for window shades and lavatories (50 cents to get in - a buck to get out ![[evil]](graemlins/evil.gif) ).
But we are an LCC (Low Cost Carrier) and we don't pretend to be anything else. The problem happens when a carrier with a reputation for first class service cuts corners on that service to save costs, but continues to charge premium fares. Customers will put up with LCC-level customer service if they know in advance that's what they'll be getting, especially at a low fare.
Our fares are cheap. Our vacation packages are cheap. Think bus company that happens to fly. We cater purely to leisure travelers instead of more demanding business travelers. Our market niche is providing non-stop big jet service (130- and 150-seat MD-80 series) from smaller cities into destination resorts (Las Vegas, Orlando (Sanford), St. Petersburg, and soon Fort Lauderdale). We avoid big cities and potential fare wars with the carriers that serve them. For the price our customers do get to ride on planes full of boisterous vacationers, but the 5-across leather seats are nice - slightly wider and pitched to allow more legroom. We're almost always full but not cramped.
We've taken a cue from companies like Southwest and Air Tran and have managed our customers' expectations. Other than a seat to their destination they don't expect much, consequently we don't give 'em much. But our customers do seem to love us - certainly the cities we serve do. We are often courted and/or offered incentives to serve a city simply because we're willing to try it (most other carriers won't even look at these cities). We're growing (29 planes and 60 cities - more of each by year's end) and making money. That's not something that can be said about many other carriers these days.
Yeah flying is overrated. But it doesn't have to be. Carriers should stop promising things they can't consistently deliver. It's the unexpected things that piss customers off. And maybe, just maybe, customers flying on a deep discount fare need to reign in their expectations a bit. My favorite Matt Groening line from his "Life in Hell" series:
quote:
If you keep your expectations tiny, you'll get through life without being so whiny.
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 07-16-2007 01:48 AM
Well today's Northwest experience was lovely as expected.
Flight #1 turns out to be a pissy little plane with 12 rows. There is a man keeping his cool pretty well, but obviously furious because he is not being permitted to carry his dialysis machine on board the cabin due to the storage compartments being about as big as my car's glove box. He is citing it's cost and reminding the Northwest personnel how fragile it is. He is treated with nothing but rudeness from Northwest. Everyone on the plane is obviously behind him on this and people are offering solutions like having it sit in the back of the aisle, or behind a seat, or letting the man hold it in his lap and so forth. The Northwest staff just snaps back at them with "there is simply no place on board to fit it!"
Finally he is ASSURED by the supervisor and the pilot, and then the two people actually picking up the bags that they will put labels on his bag denoting "extremely fragile".
So the plane is loaded and they announce we are ready to take off. I look to my left and see that the seat is empty. I call the flight attendant and say "maam this seat is empty, there is more than enough room to place that gentleman's dialysis machine on the floor of this empty seat, or even to strap it into the seat itself. I don't mind even switching seats so he can sit next to it." She replies "my supervisor has said no to that being on board and it violates FAA regulations".
I don't know what FAA regulations have to say about that, but the case could have CLEARLY sat on the damn floor in that empty seat and been perfectly safe to the passengers! Also, his bag was returned to him without any sort of label. Did I mention the flight was late? Why is it that these airlines can run their planes late every day and yet if a movie starts 5 minutes late we are supposed to refund the patrons's money? I'm not talking about bad weather, broken planes and such here either. I am talking about someone at the corporate level who cannot make a proper flight schedule for a day because of too tight of turnarounds at each stop.
Flight #2
So I have to run across the Detroit airport because Northwest doesn't know how to keep a schedule to make the second flight. Had I known what was to await me, I would have just gone up to a TSA agent and started threatening them in the hopes they would have shot me dead on the spot.
quote: Bobby Henderson
At least some, or more likely most women suffer some form of mental retardation when they become new mothers. Normal people find a baby's angry hate-filled screams about as pleasant as getting shot in the spine with a Taser X26. Some mothers find the screams enjoyable, like some hit song they downloaded from iTunes. They also seem to think everyone everyone else finds the noise to be just as pleasant, "wow my baby's lungs are well developed. Isn't he the greatest? Aren't I a great mother?" Arrgh.
Fucking godamn bloody cheese eatin' Jesus!!! I thought the flight 2 days ago couldn't have been any worse. This was EXACTLY what I was sitting behind on the second flight! Today's flight had a baby to my left, screaming of course, THREE babies just behind me, all taking turns screaming together as if they were trying to form a choir, a couple several rows ahead of me making their own "music", and then this, this...THING that sat right in the seat in front of me!
This fucking kid was screaming, and I do mean SCREAMING the entire time at a very high pitched and quite literally PAINFUL volume. I honestly had no idea that a kid could scream THAT LOUD! It was like putting two airhorns up to my ears and holding the buttons down. We endured this for 18 hours sitting on the tarmac before they finally decided to takeoff 45 minutes late.
Then the nonsense continued throughout the ENTIRE flight. Not once did that godamn thing shut it's mouth or calm down even in the slightest bit. Meanwhile the mother is just egging him on by bringing various things to his attention that makes him scream even louder while she keeps turning to everyone telling them how "adorable" her little demon creation is. (She is doing a far better job of proving she is the worst parent in the world with her "oh he just loooooooves to fly, yes he does" bullshit.)
Everyone on that plane within earshot (translation: every passenger) is obviously ready to make "rotisserie baby" for dinner, except for 2 mothers, one sitting beside her and the other sitting in front of her who think the baby is adorabe. Obviously these two women have had children of their own and were such bad parents that they too have lost those frequencies of their own hearing from their kids screaming.
And as to be expected, the totally useless Northwest flight attendants don't make the slightest gesture toward this mother and the airhorn in her lap.
Northwest Airlines YOU SUCK!
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 07-16-2007 12:36 PM
quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Yea, and why do you keep going BACK to the point of origin of all your troubles with flying?
Because I booked the tickets all together and it's too late to change, Mark. Or is that answer too obvious enough?
quote: Mike Blakesley
So what is a plane crew supposed to do about a screamin' baby? It's not like there is anywhere else in the plane to banish 'em to.
Well Mike, I personally think they could have at least said SOMETHING to the mother requesting she try to keep it quiet. She wasn't making ANY attempt to quieten to child and like Bobby commented, she completely seemed to think everyone on the flight was enjoying the company of her baby.
Of course there's always this solution. Sure it's a bit excessive for the reasoning given, but...
quote: Bobby Henderson
I think the point is people have no business taking little infant children on a plane flight.
...Bobby is completely correct. Children under 3 should NOT be permitted on an airplane. It's not just aggravating and miserable to other customers, it is also totally unfair and cruel to the child who is having a terrible time, and also like Leo mentioned, probably painful to the child.
quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
For christs sake! Lets blame the baby and the parents, thats stupid. People HAVE to travel sometimes. Some may be on their way to a funeral of a loved one or a relatives or friends wedding. Thats a place a baby is very welcomed by all its relatives... Driving a couple thousand miles with a baby is far more difficult for the baby than the baby flying for a couple of hours with a little reverse blockage.
Let the relatives travel TO the baby! If there is a funeral, the dead person isn't going to be there to enjoy the child anyway.
This is BAD PARENTING any way you slice it, with a total disregard to others, as well as the baby itself. Babies scream when they are unhappy or in pain. Even forgetting what they are doing to other passengers, why would any good parent do that to their child?
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