Experiences flying northwest?
 

I'm flying from Atlanta to Minneapolis, then on to Honolulu. I've never flown northwest before so just curious about how everyone likes it (or not.) The seats on our plane are 5 across in the middle, but we are towards the back of the plane and it looks like we have the 2 end middle seats with a wall or something next to us. At least I hope its a wall, it is just in the back few rows. Thanks for any input!

NWA flies DC-10-30 MSP-HNL. Seats are 2-5-2 in coach, tapered to 2-4-2 for the last 4 rows. There are no seperators between the two sides. First row of the 2-4-2 (row 35) has tray tables coming out of the armrests, as the seats don't align to the ones in front. That means armsrests are fixed and can't be lifted. Restrooms are behind the last row (38)

These DC-10s are like 25-year old, and have pretty small overhead bins. Since you're that far back, don't expect to get a good view of the screen.

Just pray that your flight isn't full, or just think about the beaches...

Most of the major US carriers have regressed to the same level of mediocrity in recent years.
You'll find people like to post their horror stories for a certain airline and swear they'll never fly carrier XXX again, but the bottom line is that the chances of a good or bad flight, or a major SNAFU, are similar across most of the carriers.
You can look up consumer satisfaction data and complaint ratios for each of the carriers, and the government tracks on-time rates, etc.

The last Dept of Transportation report showed Northwest was #5 of 18 carriers in the US for on-time arrivals during calendar year 2003.
More specifically, 79.5% of NW flights into the Minneapolis airport (MSP) were on time, while all airlines flying into MSP as an aggregate had a 77% on time rate.

NW cancelled 1.6% of scheduled flights in 2003 while the industry average was 2.1%

Mishandled baggage: NW reported 3.42 events per 1000 passengers in 2003. Industry average was 4.19.

Passengers denied boarding due to oversold flights: NW = 0.7% of all passenegers. Industry average: 0.86%.

Consumer complaints against the airline for 2003: NW = 492 complaints. For comparison: Southwest=106, Delta=656, Continental=371, American=781, United=548.

NW isn't the best at any one thing, it's not the worst. It's just an average US carrier. Hope your flight is boring (uneventful) and your trip is great.

I fly Northwest all the time. Northwest is the hub airline for our airport. I've even flown them to Hawaii. We didn't have middle seats but had the 2 seats on the side of the aircraft. I've never had any problems flying Northwest. I wonder if your seats are near the restrooms since your near the back of the plane. That could be the reason for the wall. I know on there bigger planes they have restrooms on both sides of the aisle.

I look at long flights as something to endure (unless I'm flying first, which is extremely rare.) I do try to book two aisle seats, across the aisle from each other, so we can both get up whenever we want. I walk around a lot. Like Janny, we too fly Northwest most of the time because they are the biggest carrier out of DTW. Ted's right, they are all about the same. On the complaint percentage statistic, perhaps they are up a little because they have so many flights in the air at any given time. We once had seats like yours (in the back near the restrooms) on a flight to Athens, Greece and got to be friends with the crew. Maybe they felt sorry for us, but just before we landed they loaded us up with tons of little bottles of booze. Kept us going the rest of the trip! I do wish you a spectacular time in Hawaii.

Northwest is one of my favorites. I like United also. AA & USAirways are not my faves.

Nothing against NW overall, but look at the choices one can get from ATL-HNL.

CO uses brand new 764 from IAH. 2-3-2 seating and personal video monitor in every seat.

DL also uses new 764, non-stop from ATL or via LAX. No personal monitor though.

AA uses 763 via DFW. No personal monitor.

UA uses 777 from SFO. 2-5-2 seating and no personal monitor, so same deal as NW; but the plane is about 20 years newer than the DC-10, with much larger overhead bins.

When you look at the equipment (I'm not talking about service), NW clearly has the worse product for anybody going ATL to HNL in coach.

pianogirl,

Check out www.seatguru.com to get information on your specific seats. Just go to the Northwest pull-down menu and click on the McDonnell Douglas DC 10-30.

We fly a lot for business on many different airlines, with Northwest being one we are on quite frequently. I don't find them any worse or better than any other. I must say we have been on time on Northwest far more than most of the other airlines that we fly with. Also have never had baggage lost. Have a great trip whatever you decide.