It's Cliche, But I Know Why They're Called Northworst
I am sitting at my computer desk on Friday morning, leisurely nursing a cup of tea, going over the latest work-related news on the internet preparing for a pleasant (if slightly hungover) morning working in my skivvies in my living room. The phone rings, I ignore it, and it rings again a bit later, and a friend is on the line.
The reason I’m working from home is because it’s closer to the airport than my office, and I’m flying out that afternoon to the storied Quad Cities of the Great American Plains. [Ten points to anyone who can name all four without use of a reference aid.] A friend of mine is getting married at a small country church in the middle of an Iowa cornfield on Saturday, and I’m looking forward to the event and the mini-reunion nature of out-of-town weddings of former classmates.
My friend, the one who was calling, had just been called by a reservations agent for Northwest Airlines. (I had just missed a similar call.) My friend, his wife, and I are all scheduled to fly from National Airport (only tourists, newscasters and right-wing freaks call it “Reagan,” thank you very much. I’ve got no objection to throwing RWR’s name on Trade Centers and aircraft carriers, but keep it off airports in towns where he couldn’t muster a majority vote, OK?) We are supposed to fly to Minneapolis-Saint Paul (MSP), with a two-hour layover, then off to Moline-Quad Cities Airport.
Well, there are “mechanical difficulties” for our flight to Moline from MSP. Eight hours from now. They’ve cancelled the flight. And they cannot get us into Moline before Saturday morning as the other flights are all full. But wait, there are later flights? All full. So why not cancel one of those flights, and use the plane for my flight? Why pick my flight to cancel, why not pick another one? Later, I discover that some of the people from the flight that was cancelled were booked on the later flight. Why not us?
OK, let’s make the best of this. Can we get to Chicago? Sure, but it’s a three-hour drive. OK, how about Cedar Rapids? One-and-a-half hours. Not nearly as bad. Seats on that plane? Sure, we’re rebooked, and still getting into the QC’s around 10:30 after the drive in a rental car (which somehow we are paying for?) Get to MSP, and wander down to out gate for the flight to Cedar Rapids. We get to the gate, and look at the monitor.
Cancelled. That’s right, the rebooked flight (into a city 100 miles from our destination and several hours later) is also cancelled due to “mechanical failure”. Somehow, we get onto a later flight to Cedar Rapids. Later, I discovered a pair of people who were sold tickets to get to Moline, and were willing to go to Cedar Rapids, but they didn’t have seats for them by then. Why did we get on, and they didn't? What possible rhyme or reason is there to this clusterfck of a business? Shocking that their stock is worthless.
And how on earth did they not know earlier that they weren’t going to have enough planes to get people to Cedar Rapids? Or is there some pimply-faced recent Big Ten graduate with a degree in “Business” that makes decisions as wise as those that are exercised by this scourge of mass transportation? OK, we’ll cancel this flight, but wait until people are in the middle of their flightplan so that we have to pay to put them in a hotel, that’s the way that to save the most costs. If we’d have gone to Chicago in the first place we would have been in the QC’s two hours earlier. How horrendous can one company be?
Then Sunday we had to get home.
I was returning to National (not Reagan) Airport via Detroit (DTW). My flight from Moline to DTW yesterday was, as appears to be NW’s invariable custom, oversold. My friends decide to get on the plane, but I take the free roundtrip ticket and agree to get on a later flight (5 pm instead of 10 am departure). Now I'm going into Dulles instead of National, and don't get in until 10:50 instead of 3:30, but I’m addicted to travel like a crack addict is to tiny glass viles, so I bite on the bargain.
And thank God I did. My friends get to DTW, and their (i.e., "my") connecting flight to National (not Reagan) is cancelled! NW can't get them to any of the three airports in metro DC, so they have to get on a Delta flight to Atlanta, then get sent to Baltimore – about 75 minutes away from their home – yet still don't land until after midnight.
I got off my plane at Dulles and head to the ticket counter to cajole Northwest into giving me a taxi voucher, but it’s 11 o’clock and there’s no one there. I thought about getting a taxi and just sending them the bill, but decided that I’d rather deal with a bus ride back to my apartment than have to quarrel over a 50 spot with customer service agents of this corporate mess. The bus was three bucks, and at least I was in bed asleep about 1. My friends weren't home until after 230 and no free voucher.
What a total nightmare. And the worse part? Somehow I thought I got a deal by getting a free flight coupon…I mean, that means I have to get on another Northwest flight in the next 12 months.
As Johnny Knoxville recently said, “It's kinda like catching herpes from Audrey Hepburn: You're bummed about the herpes, but you're psyched you got them from her.”
The reason I’m working from home is because it’s closer to the airport than my office, and I’m flying out that afternoon to the storied Quad Cities of the Great American Plains. [Ten points to anyone who can name all four without use of a reference aid.] A friend of mine is getting married at a small country church in the middle of an Iowa cornfield on Saturday, and I’m looking forward to the event and the mini-reunion nature of out-of-town weddings of former classmates.
My friend, the one who was calling, had just been called by a reservations agent for Northwest Airlines. (I had just missed a similar call.) My friend, his wife, and I are all scheduled to fly from National Airport (only tourists, newscasters and right-wing freaks call it “Reagan,” thank you very much. I’ve got no objection to throwing RWR’s name on Trade Centers and aircraft carriers, but keep it off airports in towns where he couldn’t muster a majority vote, OK?) We are supposed to fly to Minneapolis-Saint Paul (MSP), with a two-hour layover, then off to Moline-Quad Cities Airport.
Well, there are “mechanical difficulties” for our flight to Moline from MSP. Eight hours from now. They’ve cancelled the flight. And they cannot get us into Moline before Saturday morning as the other flights are all full. But wait, there are later flights? All full. So why not cancel one of those flights, and use the plane for my flight? Why pick my flight to cancel, why not pick another one? Later, I discover that some of the people from the flight that was cancelled were booked on the later flight. Why not us?
OK, let’s make the best of this. Can we get to Chicago? Sure, but it’s a three-hour drive. OK, how about Cedar Rapids? One-and-a-half hours. Not nearly as bad. Seats on that plane? Sure, we’re rebooked, and still getting into the QC’s around 10:30 after the drive in a rental car (which somehow we are paying for?) Get to MSP, and wander down to out gate for the flight to Cedar Rapids. We get to the gate, and look at the monitor.
Cancelled. That’s right, the rebooked flight (into a city 100 miles from our destination and several hours later) is also cancelled due to “mechanical failure”. Somehow, we get onto a later flight to Cedar Rapids. Later, I discovered a pair of people who were sold tickets to get to Moline, and were willing to go to Cedar Rapids, but they didn’t have seats for them by then. Why did we get on, and they didn't? What possible rhyme or reason is there to this clusterfck of a business? Shocking that their stock is worthless.
And how on earth did they not know earlier that they weren’t going to have enough planes to get people to Cedar Rapids? Or is there some pimply-faced recent Big Ten graduate with a degree in “Business” that makes decisions as wise as those that are exercised by this scourge of mass transportation? OK, we’ll cancel this flight, but wait until people are in the middle of their flightplan so that we have to pay to put them in a hotel, that’s the way that to save the most costs. If we’d have gone to Chicago in the first place we would have been in the QC’s two hours earlier. How horrendous can one company be?
Then Sunday we had to get home.
I was returning to National (not Reagan) Airport via Detroit (DTW). My flight from Moline to DTW yesterday was, as appears to be NW’s invariable custom, oversold. My friends decide to get on the plane, but I take the free roundtrip ticket and agree to get on a later flight (5 pm instead of 10 am departure). Now I'm going into Dulles instead of National, and don't get in until 10:50 instead of 3:30, but I’m addicted to travel like a crack addict is to tiny glass viles, so I bite on the bargain.
And thank God I did. My friends get to DTW, and their (i.e., "my") connecting flight to National (not Reagan) is cancelled! NW can't get them to any of the three airports in metro DC, so they have to get on a Delta flight to Atlanta, then get sent to Baltimore – about 75 minutes away from their home – yet still don't land until after midnight.
I got off my plane at Dulles and head to the ticket counter to cajole Northwest into giving me a taxi voucher, but it’s 11 o’clock and there’s no one there. I thought about getting a taxi and just sending them the bill, but decided that I’d rather deal with a bus ride back to my apartment than have to quarrel over a 50 spot with customer service agents of this corporate mess. The bus was three bucks, and at least I was in bed asleep about 1. My friends weren't home until after 230 and no free voucher.
What a total nightmare. And the worse part? Somehow I thought I got a deal by getting a free flight coupon…I mean, that means I have to get on another Northwest flight in the next 12 months.
As Johnny Knoxville recently said, “It's kinda like catching herpes from Audrey Hepburn: You're bummed about the herpes, but you're psyched you got them from her.”
posted by Jason at 17:19
4 Comments:
This is why I drive.
Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, and Betendorf and Davenport, Iowa.
From an article I read in U.S. News long ago, "mechanical failure" is industry slang for a flight that has less than half of its seats sold. The airlines would rather traumitize everyone, their uncles, and their respective itineraries, causing additional expenses to themselves and their customers, than fly a plane that they've arbitrarily decided is insufficiently booked. Can you imagine if the bus that took you home operated under this same, "we may come to get you or may not" principle?
And that's exactly why the major airlines bleed money every, single year and come crying to your employers for money.
who cares what the quad cities are... you flew through MSP and I hear ummm NOTHING from you. nice.
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