Northwest Airlines (may they burn forever) left us hanging high & dry, xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxx {certain words redacted} that they are. Not that I've got any hard feelings, mind you. I'd just like to see them suffer horribly before and after their airline is bought up by Crack addicted starving syphilitic HIV+ horny teenage male cannibals.
The basic story is:
We bought a $800 full seat ticket for Zoe here in the US (a lap ticket was also available for $160 - she'd have to ride the whole way on my lap or Dyanne's lap). I verified this with NW, while laying in my comfy hospital bed at Kettering Hospital, before we left (my airplane seat was to be in the row behind Zoe & Dyanne).
Travel Agency failed to send us a copy of the receipt, proving seat purchases.
Flight Dayton-Detroit-Tokyo-Beijing was OK.
For our return flight, NW China could find no record of Zoe's seat purchase. I ended up paying $310 for a lap ticket for Zoe (twice the US price before we got the full seat ticket).
NW Tokyo could find no record of Zoe's original full seat ticket, and the xxxx {redacted again} ticket agent insisted on speaking full speed Japanese when I was using my 16 years old Kindergarten level Japanese language skills on him (even though I kept telling him "I Don't Understand"). Xxxx {redacted} agent also would not call over anybody that could speak better Engrish.
We got to Detroit, but had no time to make our connecting flight. Flight was supposed to leave at 3:10PM, we missed it. Next flight was 7PM. That was canceled due to T-Storms (valid, since there were heavy storms hitting the airport then).
Then began the delaying/deceit games....Flight was then delayed till 8, then 8:30, [when the 7PM flight was delayed, they "sent the aircraft back to its home base, and had to get it back to Detroit"] then 9 ["aircraft was back, but they needed to find a crew"], then 9:30PM ["delayed again due to T-Storms]". Finally, the flight was canceled at 10PM ["Oops! Canceled for real due to weather"...Honest, Trust Us!].
Of course, even though our flight was canceled due to bad weather, flights to Toledo OH & Lexington KY boarded & left around the same time. Weather, huh?
I was lucky enough to recognize a guy from the local fire dept that inspects my company's Dayton plant from time to time. He and a group of folks were just returning from Germany (sister city visit). The fire dept guy spoke to a couple of NW ground crew members entering the terminal. They said that the original delay was due to thunder storms. The cancellation, however, was due to the flight crew being over their max allowable hours on the job, and no other crew being available to replace them.
Of course, since the flight cancellation was due to "weather", NW is not liable for any hotel/food bills. Twits! We stood in line for 1-2 hours to get replacement tickets. If you wanted local hotels, they told you that all local accommodations were booked up. Call a 1-800 number & maybe they could help. People that called the 1-800# were told "hmmmm...I don't know nuthin...call back in about half an hour."
A Catholic Sister (Society of Mary, due to give a talk at Univ of Dayton the next day) waiting at the airport with us, didn't want to "impose" by sharing one of the motel rooms lined up by the fire dept guy. She spent the night in the airport chapel, freezing her buns off (if Sisters have "buns", that is), wrapped in bubble wrap to try & stay warm. If I hadn't known the fire dept guy from work, and if his group hadn't lined up 7 rooms when the flight was first canceled, and if one of the group members hadn't kindly given up her room so we could have a relaxing 6 hours of sleep in a real bed, we'd have spent the night in "Chateau" Pearson Intl Airport.
Zoe dancing with the Marionist Sister
THANKS, NORTHWEST!
Followup:
So....when we finally got back home, I started stirring up "stuff." I emailed FTIA, and wrote a nice little letter to the President/CEO of Northwest. Feedback from FTIA and their travel agency shows just how incompetent NWA truly is.
The travel agent wrote:
"I spoke with someone at NW about this case. First we looked at the parents reservation. This is VERY peculiar. The agent at NW said the Johnson reservation looked like it had been cancelled from Tokyo and all the rest of the flights, because there was a note in the reservation that the clients did not show up at the airport in Tokyo??? She asked me if the Johnsons were still in Japan? I said, no they have gone to China and are already back home in the US. She has NO record of the Johnsons flying from Tokyo to China and home, she was concerned they were still in Japan. Second I tried to find any record of the infant lap ticket. We tried the baby's Chinese name and the American name, the NW agent could not find a record of the infant, nor the Johnsons return flight home. This is a very strange case. Nobody really understands how the Johnsons even made it home. They also do not see the reservation I made for the child with her Chinese name(the one you also have a copy of). They just CAN NOT find any record, seat nor lap ticket of this child at all! It is even more peculiar, as a NW agent made the lap ticket reservation(I'm guessing) for the client in THEIR own system at the airport(right?)?????"
Here's my letter to the president/CEO of NWA:
October 30, 2005
So...their reply was basically:
Northwest Airlines
Attn: Mr. Douglas Steenland
President and Chief Executive Officer
2700 Lone Oak Parkway
Eagan, MN 55121
Dear Mr. Steenland:
I've flown with NWA for years, on both domestic and international (Asia & North America) flights. This letter is to explain why I will do my best to avoid having my family and friends fly with Northwest Airlines in the future. Should you wish, feel free to reply.
My wife and I recently adopted our daughter from China, and the adoption agency's travel agent (Lotus Travel) made reservations for us on Northwest. The travel agent was initially going to reserve a lap seat ($160) for my daughter's return flight to the US. I ended up paying $800 for a full (not lap) seat. Having flown to Japan in the past, I didn't really want to have a 20 pound baby on my lap or my wife's lap for the 12-14 hour return flight.
Our adoption agency (FTIA) let me know prior to departing the US that I was not seated with the rest of my family on the return flight from Tokyo to Detroit. From my bed at Kettering Hospital (that's another story, but it involves a Labor Day vacation, a fall from a bicycle, and a few days of IV antibiotics) I called NWA via your 1-800 number to see if I could be seated next to my wife Dyanne and my daughter. The agent was able to verify our seat reservations (more on this later), but was unable to change the seats due to a full flight. Dyanne and my daughter Zoe (Zoe Yuguang Johnson or Gui Yu Guang) were seated next to each other, and I was seated directly behind them. Although not perfect, this was still OK. At least we all had seats. Or so I thought.
On 9/11/05, Dyanne and I flew from Dayton, OH to Detroit, MI to Tokyo, Japan to Beijing, PRC. On the outbound flight, there were no major problems other than a couple hassles.
Hassle #1 - NWA ticket agent could find no record of my NWA frequent flyer number in your computer (377-058-xxx, by the way). I could not have the flight credited to my account. Feel free to have this done, if you're up to it.
Hassle #2 - The passenger entertainment system on your international flight was useless. It kept locking up part of the display screens on many of the passenger's seats. This tied up one flight crewmember nearly full time to reset the passenger systems. After my screen screwed up three times, I finally gave up. So much for entertainment during long flights.
Our time spent in China went very well, and on 9/22/05, we arrived at the Guangzhou, China airport around 6AM for our 8:30 AM flight #10 to Tokyo Narita.
Your Guangzhou ticket agent could find NO record of my daughter's seat purchase. I ended up paying $310 for a lap seat for Zoe. The people I dealt with were (supervisor) badge # ED3132 and (gate agent) badge # 2190CD. Although they were incompetent, they were very polite.
I hoped that upon reaching Tokyo, we might be able to figure out the seat situation. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
I dealt with your agent Tomohisa Tozaki at the Tokyo Narita airport. Although I tried using my "Kindergarten" level Japanese language skills learned 16 years ago during a four month assignment in Japan, your agent insisted on speaking full speed Japanese. I tried to explain that in the USA we'd bought and paid for a full seat for Zoe, but in China they told me she had no seat. Even though I kept telling him in Japanese "I Don't Understand", he kept slamming me with full speed Japanese and would not call over anybody that spoke better English. In nearly 20 years of dealing with Japanese people on a professional basis, I'd never met a Japanese person so rude and brusque. Neither he nor another agent at the gate could find any record of Zoe's original full seat purchase.
My wife and I ended up with a 20 pound baby in our laps for the entire return flight. This is what I paid the extra money to avoid!
We got to Detroit, but had no time to make our connecting flight to Dayton (#3100). The flight was supposed to leave at 3:10PM, but we missed it clearing Customs & Immigration. The next flight was 7PM. That was canceled due to thunderstorms (valid, since there were heavy storms hitting the airport then). It should be noted that the thunderstorms cleared up within 30-45 minutes (by ~7:45PM).
Then began the delaying/deceit games. The flight was then delayed till 8, then 8:30, [when the 7PM flight was delayed, they "sent the aircraft back to its home base, and had to get it back to Detroit"] then 9 ["aircraft was back, but they needed to find a crew"], then 9:30PM ["delayed again due to T-Storms]".
Finally, the flight was canceled at 10PM, allegedly due to "weather."
In my "copious free time" away from my normal job as an engineer, I've volunteered for the past 17 years as a paramedic on my local fire department. I've made acquaintances with a number of people in the fire service, including a Captain on another Dayton area fire department. It just so happens that "Captain Mike" was waiting at the gate for the same Detroit to Dayton flight. He had just returned from Germany with a group that had visited their sister city.
Captain Mike spoke to a couple of Northwest ground crew members entering the terminal. They said that the original delay was due to thunderstorms. They said that subsequent delays and the final cancellation, however, were due to the flight crew being over their max allowable hours on the job, and no other crew being available to replace them.
At the same time as our flight to Dayton was canceled due to the horribly unsafe weather, Northwest boarded & launched aircraft to Toledo, OH & Lexington, KY. Weather induced cancellation, huh?
Of course, since the flight cancellation was due to "weather", the Northwest agent said that NWA was not liable for any hotel/food bills. We stood in line for almost 2 hours to get replacement tickets for a flight out the next day. If you asked the gate agent about local hotels, they told you that all local accommodations were booked up. The counter people didn't care - we were seen as cattle being "processed". We were told to call a 1-800 number & maybe they could help with hotel rooms. People that called the 1-800# were told "hmmmm...I don't know nothing...call back in about half an hour."
Luckily, the instant our flight was canceled (while the rest of us cattle were standing in line), one of the members of the Germany sister city group left the airport and got a block of seven rooms at Super 8 Motel. Another member of the group was so kind as to give up her motel room so that Dyanne, Zoe, and I could get six hours of sleep in a real bed, rather than sleeping in an airport boarding gate chair. Remember, at this point, we'd been "on the go" since 5:30AM China time the previous morning.
A Catholic Sister (Society of Mary, due to give a talk at the University of Dayton the next day) waiting at the airport with us to fly to Dayton, didn't want to "impose" by sharing one of the motel rooms lined up by the person in Captain Mike's group. Since Northwest shirked its responsibility to provide lodging when canceling flights as a result of inadequate staffing, she spent the night in the airport chapel, freezing, wrapped in bubble wrap to try & stay warm. It's good to see that Northwest Airlines knows how to treat a lady. You should be proud.
If I hadn't known Captain Mike from work, and if his group hadn't lined up seven rooms when the flight was first canceled, and if one of those group members hadn't given up her motel room for us, we'd have spent the night in Pearson International Airport.
The following afternoon, while taxiing out to the runway on NWA flight 3465, the airplane pilot announced that thanks to the "Crack Operations Team" in Detroit, we'd be shortly taking off for Dayton.
About five or ten minutes after that, the pilot was forced to announce that our aircraft had to return to the gate. Apparently, one of the baggage compartments had been misloaded and was over weight by several hundred pounds. Upon returning to the gate, they had to shuffle baggage from one compartment to another to rebalance the load. I think he meant to say that the "Detroit Operations Team is on Crack", judging from their lack of caring about your customers, misleading your customers, and incompetently performing their jobs for your customers.
THANKS, NORTHWEST!
Sincerely,
Jeff Johnson
After about three weeks, NWA replied.
We're sorry our Guangzhou agents were incompetent & couldn't find your reservation.
We're sorry our Tokyo agent didn't bother taking the time to assist a traveler in distress.
Blahblahblah we'll try to not let it happen again, and have thrown your complaint into File 13.
We're sorry our super-duper in-flight video system sucks.
We'll continue to tell you the fairy tale that your flight was cancelled due to weather, and hope to swallow the line this time. Sorry you got screwed out of $$$ for a hotel room, but move along little doggie....
So you don't hate us too bad, here's a couple ticket discounts if you're stupid enough to fly with us in the next year [we weren't].
We're not really all that bad of an airline, even though our people can't do their job, ignore travelers in distress, make up tall tales as we strand you far away from home, then stick you with the bill for our own incompetence.
THANKS, NORTHWEST!