Northwest - Never Again

We're back! And now I have some time to update this. I have to break down my postings so you won't get bored reading through everything at once.

I'll tell you first what happened with Northwest. On the way to the Philippines, everytime they would start boarding, they kept saying that this flight is overbooked and was asking if there were any volunteers in giving up their reservation. Ok, on the way back here (Sunday, July 29), it was the same story. Also, the leg from Japan to Minnesota, the attendants didn't really "attend" to the passengers. We were given the customs and declaration form to fill out but I needed another one so I pushed the call button for an attendant to come. No one came. I think it after about 10 mins, I turned off the call button and pushed it again, thinking maybe they didn't hear it. Nothing again. One attendant passed by and I told her I needed another form. She said that one of the interpreters had that, not her. Fine. I thought maybe she'd tell whoever was in charge of the forms that we needed one. No one came. So Jojo stood and looked for this person to get the form himself. Next incident, I needed ice for Finn's drink. I pushed the call button again. As before, no one came. I turned it off after maybe another 10 mins. This time, Finn said that his lips hurt. I couldn't see anything wrong, no cut or bruise. So I pushed the call button again to ask for some ice. Same thing. One attendant serving tea passed and I told her I needed ice. She said she didn't have ice with her. She didn't even bother asking another attendant to give me ice. I kept turning off and on the call button in hopes of someone coming to serve us. Finally, after like the 4th time, someone came and so I got my ice after maybe half an hour of waiting.

The story doesn't end there. When we get to Minnesota, we were looking for the gate to our connecting flight to Newark. *Gasp* It's cancelled?! We didn't know which gate it was supposed to be on so we went to the ticketing area instead to ask what happened. We get there and they tell us it's because of the weather. But there was a flight before and after ours that wasn't cancelled, how could that be? The ticketing agent said that she can book us on the next day's flight since everything for that day was fully booked. Jojo had to go to work on Monday so he said that we had to get on a flight that day. She said that the best she could do was put him on a later flight and then Finn and I were to go the next day. What?! Jojo was mad now. He asked if they were gonna put us in a hotel and she said she can give us a discount. He said he's not gonna leave a 5 year old to stay in the airport. So off we went to look for the supervisor.

We get there and she said that the flight was cancelled because of the lack of pilots, not the weather. And she said the we were booked on the next day's flight before noon. She gives us 3 discount vouchers and then goes inside to see what she can do about the flight. She comes out and says that she can book us to a flight to Memphis but she can't guarantee the seats. Then the flight from Memphis to Newark on Continental, she put us in First Class. She then retracts her statement and says that out flight was cancelled due to weather and not pilots, and says she can't give us the discount vouchers after all. Fine, so we run to the other side of the airport for the flight to Memphis. Our seats were on 20, 31, and 48. I went to 48 and asked the guy there if he was willing to swap seats coz of Finn. He agreed and then we waited for the other passenger on 48 to come. Good thing she was kind enough to swap with us as well so the 3 of us got to sit together.

So we get to Memphis and went to the gate for the flight to Newark. Lo and behold, it too was cancelled. Noooooo!!!!!!! We've been flying for 24 hours now and still can't get home! This time, they said it's because of the pilots. Seems that NW was being audited for their pilot's flight times and they've been overflying their pilots so they were grounded. Meaning, not enough pilots = cancelled flights. They gave us vouchers for the hotel plus dinner and breakfast. Plus their other coupon vouchers. This was around 6pm on Sunday. We decided to eat dinner first in the airport since we weren't able to eat lunch because we were arguing with the ticketing agent and supervisor in Minnesota. So we ate and were thinking if we should go to the hotel or not. Coz there was this lady who was so pissed at them, saying she got a hotel voucher from them before and it wasn't honored by the hotel. Anyway, we decided to just stay in the airport. Our flight the next day was after 11am. We went first to Gate C14 where our flight to Newark was gonna board. I was able to sleep a little. Then we went to B where the seats didn't have arms so that we can lie down. Jojo and Finn slept longer and a nice gentleman from NW gave us blankets (the first kind act from them) But we had to leave since they were gonna close off the gates at 11.30pm. We moved to the lobby and Finn was still sleeping. I slept a little again here. Then we bought food at Arby's which was open 24 hrs. The other stores are all closed. So it was like that the whole night, we took turns sleeping but I couldn't really sleep well. Good thing an airport staff gave us 2 pillows which made sleeping a little more bearable. At around 3am, we freshened up a little and changed clothes - this is the reason you have to have at least one set of clothes in your carry-on. By 5am, the booths were open so Jojo went to check-in and make sure we had seats on this flight. Then we went through security again and off to gate C14. Jojo bought breakfast and we ate there. The flights on that gate that morning were all going to Houston. Before 9am, they were boarding this flight and then I heard the lady say that it was going to Newark. I checked our boarding pass ... it's not the same flight but we asked anyway. "Sure you can board, this flight is empty." Good thing we asked right away coz she was closing the doors already. Yay!!! Finally, we were on our way home. It was the right decision not to go to the hotel (^_^) We were also lucky we were just sitting there waiting coz this wasn't a scheduled flight. So we landed in Newark before 12nn. Continental flights are in Terminal C so we had to go to Terminal B where Northwest is to get our bags. Luckily, our bags were already there. We were home before 1pm.

Whew! I got tired all over again just telling this story. Now you know why I won't fly Northwest ever again.