It appears that our long, conflicted relationship with NWA is coming to a messy, prolonged close. How could it be any other way?

I had a twinge of nostalgia when I saw that the merger with Delta had been approved, and I had to ask myself why. Mostly I think it’s the human tendency to get attached to anything that is familiar. NWA is part of the Minnesota landscape. I have NWA friends, I still have 30,000 NWA frequent miles in the bank, and my NWA Visa is always there in my wallet to remind me how irresponsible I can be. (Though that is changing; I’m getting rid of the card; it’s almost paid off and frequent flier plans aren’t what they used to be.)

As a corporate citizen, Northwest lived up to its Northworst reputation. It never made customer service a priority in the way Sun Country (another sad tale) or Southwest did. It never managed to create a positive workplace culture, made a lot of mistakes at the cost of employee goodwill, and often seemed to leave the state holding the bag.

But this is no time to pile on. Losing Northwest is a blow to the state’s economy, and it might in some ways constrain our connections to the outside world. We may get cheaper flights, but there won’t be as many direct flights. Out of the 150 or so flights I made on NWA, I probably had 7 or 8 bad experiences. A few rude ticket agents, an exasperated attendant or two, some random incompetence. An unforgivable two-day delay in Oklahoma City.

On those other 140 flights, there were ticket agents who went out of there way to find me an available frequent flier seat, attendants who smiled when they had every right to be scowling, and in general, employees who graciously did their work, day in and day out, even though they found themselves uncomfortably squeezed between incompetent and venal management and angry and frustrated customers.

As a tribute to them, I’ll recount a story I heard last night at a reading by David Sedaris. He told us about an airline attendant who recently explained to him how changes in air pressure create air in one’s intestines, and that a copious production of gas is the natural result. “When we walk down the aisle no one can hear us —-ing over the engine noise,” she told him. “We call it crop dusting.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am and is filed under Northwest, airlines, airports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.