Don’t Go There!

One Response to “Don’t Fly Northwest Airlines”

1. I had a flight on Northwest last February and it was a nightmare. The key element was that while you were supposed to be at the gate 60 minutes before boarding, I arrived at the counter for my boarding pass about 65 minutes prior. The agent’s terminal wasn’t even on. She conferred with her colleagues for exactly six minutes, during which time I heard the the word “overbooked.” Then, when she got around to serving me, she told me, “You’re late, you’re supposed to be here sixty minutes in advance.” In other words, it appears that they knew they were overbooked and deliberately held me up for long enough that my being bumped was technically my fault, so they didn’t have to compensate me with flight coupons as is normally the case.

   I won’t even get into how rude the actual gate agent was, except to say this: I haven’t hit anyone since I was thirteen but had we not been in an airport I would have punched him square in the mouth.

   All in all, Northwest’s shenanigans turned my eight-hour, three-city flight into a 24-hour, five-city ordeal. NWA, pronounced “No Way!”

   Tim Moerman
   December 6th, 2008