Northwest Woes

I don't want to make judgments here about which airlines is good or bad, tho I will say I try to fly JetBlue on every occasion I can. I've not had to wait ten hours on the tarmac like some JetBlue customers did several months ago, and my experience has almost always been great with them, so I remain a fan. But I have to say that I have had less than perfect experiences on two particular airlines: American and Northwest.

American cancelled a flight of mine to Newfoundland a year ago, and the way the workers there dealt with us was an abomination. Northwest just never seems to get where they need to go on time. That has been my experience. Well, take a look at this piece over at ABC news. Seems like Northwest's problems are pretty awful.

ABC reports that the airline, the nation's fifth largest, had to cancel over 200 flights because pilots essentially went on strike. The pilots say they are not "playing hooky", but that their contracts limit flying time to 90 hours per month and during this year's busy travel season their time sheets are "maxed-out". An interesting note with this piece is that the subhead says that Americans rank the airlines lower than the IRS in terms of customer service, but there's no follow up to the subhead in the story.

Anyway, ugh. You'd think the company would work this stuff out with its pilots rather than make customers suffer. I have tried to fly less this summer all around because of the airlines' woes, and this is the kind of story that makes me think that is a fine strategy.

Filed under: Business, Airlines