AmerLisa

My daughter and her babies just flew back yesterday on Northwest Airlines. Well she bought her tickets through KLM, but they contract with Northwest. She's flown with them before, even though it hasn't ever been a fantastic experience, her closest airport (to her home) is Leeds/Bradford.

Anyway, I took her to the airport yesterday (Seattle) and check in was an absolute nightmare! Delta (which is in the process of acquiring Northwest) does the check-in and they were also checking in several other flights (apparently this is now called SkyTeam )with their speedy (read lots of sarcasm here) self check in service (yes for international flights ) My daughter ended up having to go to special services because she has a baby (who would be sitting on her lap) and we stood in that line (only one counter person for Northwest flights) for almost an hour. They decided to put another person on the counter when (I'm assuming) flights were getting close to taking off.

Once up to the counter the guy checked her in (and her four large pieces of luggage - all under 50lbs) and told her the flight was very full - it was over sold! Why do they do that? Do they really think no one will show up for their flight? Or is there another reason?

The flight left late, but she arrived home this morning....tired and frazzled, with no, I repeat NO luggage. Have no idea where it is.....

I've had lost luggage before, a bag.....but never 4 large bags. I mean how in the heck do they manage to do that.

Yea Sky Team....

Poppy girl

Yep NW KLM AIR FRANCE AND DELTA is as one now.

I bet the luggage is on another flight its very hard to lose it for good these days as they are bar coded.....the plus side is that they will deliver the bags to her house, so she at least she did not have to cart them acrossed the ariport or all the way home.

On the back of her passport should be a white sticker with a barcode on thats the duplicate copy thats on her bags....I am sure she would of given this to the lost baggage counter, bummer hey

AmerLisa

Just on the phone with her now..... She had a connecting flight from Seattle to Amsterdam and then to Leeds, and the moron didn't even check her in all the way to Leeds/Bradford. Checked in her luggage and not her. So when she went up to board the flight in Amsterdam the very rude airline employee told her that her luggage had been offloaded because she hadn't checked in and told her off for not checking in (which the guy in Seattle should have done.) What a horrible nightmare!

Poppy girl

And I bet they don't compensate her in any way except for a "we are very sorry to hear about your journey"

AmerLisa

Well she said the flight on the Amsterdam to Leeds was ok and the flight attendant offered to have someone help her through customs, with her luggage, etc.....Of course the last laugh was that there was no luggage.

Poppy girl

I had my bag lost and found on a contintal flight to the UK from sfo took 3 days to get it back.

1 week lost bag in Fuentaventura had to borrow and buy new gear on a Monarch flight.

Flew back to the UK with NW 2 years ago and the heating was going hay wire in the mid of the plane, it was so cold the compleat flight, we had to wear coats and gloves and I had my fur hat with me it was a nightmare.
NW reply when I wrote and complained " we are are sorry to hear about your flight, it appears the aircraft had technical problems (no shit sherlock) but hope that you chose NW for prefered airline, again in the future"

AmerLisa

Yeah will never, ever fly them again! Well I didn't, but I told my daughter as we were standing in line yesterday - you should have flown BA..... Next time she will!

meauxna

This particular merger is like all the demons of hell getting together; I couldn't pick a worse combination if I tried... sorry to hear of the rough trip.

lansbury

It is a proven fact that a certain percentage of people do not turn up for flights. Airlines keep very accurate records on a per flight basis and the reservation management systems predict the percentage of no-shows and overbook accordingly. The idea being to sell as many seats as possible.

The worst culprits are business travelers who will buy full price fully refundable tickets on all the flights for that day they might take and then take the flight which they decide they want and get a refund on the other tickets

lansbury

My sons have been flying from Leeds/Bradford via Amsterdam every since NW started the Amsterdam - Portland service and think it is about the best of all the ways they have come over. Be interesting to see what they say this year, as one comes next month and one at Christmas, now the merger has taken place.

Kate2112

Airlines need to take action with these business travellers and not allow them to book more than one flight from an outward airport to the same destination airport per day as they are aware of this workaround - its not rocket science and would be more customer service minded.

markhawksley

Might be worth sending a complaint email. We had a nightmare AA flight from St. Kitts recently-the only flight on the day we were due to fly home was canceled, so we had to fly home the next day. The flight the next day was late getting into Miami, so we missed out connection to Las Vegas and had to stay the night in Miami. We finally got home tired and very pissed off two days late. I fired off a complaint email to AA and was given a $400 voucher for another flight. Not too bad. Make sure you are polite but firm and mention you will need some compensation before flying Delta/Northwest again. Worked for me.

lansbury

You would think so but it boils down I guess to who do you upset. A company that buys a number of tickets each year or the occasional leisure traveler who only picked your airline because you had the cheapest fare.

Also with several airlines flying on a route (London to New York for example) it is just as easy to buy one ticket on several different airlines. As long as they sell fully refundable tickets I don't see a solution to the problem.

Kate2112

If all Airlines could be persuaded to follow this policy it would work. Business travellers who book multiple flights with multiple airlines - for same Dep/Arr would mitigate the problem for nonB - without any need for non competitive information sharing. Though this is moot, as more Airlines are merging and options for B and nonB pax.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

I have a boodle of miles from Korean Air from the days when I would fly to Asia. Korean Air is part of the Skyteam Alliance, as is Delta, Continental, NW, AeroMexico & Czech Airlines.

I've had good experience with them. I am so glad to be rid of British Airways -- which NEVER had a non-eventful flight.