travdis

Did you see the story on this morning's TODAY SHOW on NBC about the flight from Amsterdam to Seattle that took 28 hours. The passengers were trapped on the plane in Moses Lake, Washington for 18 hours without food, water or working toliets but the airline and ground representatives would not let anyone off the plane. There were sick people on the plane but Northwest would not let them see a doctor or get off the plane.

Remember Northwest Airlines did the same thing during a snow storm in Michigan a few years ago which started all the talk of a passenger bill of rights. (Which the airlines watered down). They promised to do better next time-- SURE!

Don't these airlines ever learn? I see lawyers circling already. (The Detroit passengers all collected a sizabale settlement from Northwest a few years ago for false imprisonment).

Orcas

The story is far more complicated than you present. Here is the story:
http://www.komotv.com/stories/34586.htm

TC

While I'm not a particular fan of NW Airline, your post deserves a bit more clarification. While it is true that the flight took a total of 28 hours, they were only on the ground in Moses Lake for 5 hours and they did have food, water and toilets provided for most of that time. See the complete story here:

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news...nd/59176.shtml

The unfortunate flight had a real "from bad to worse" scenerio. The first 2-hour delay was caused by a need to de-ice in Amsterdam, the second delay by fog in Seattle - neither could be controlled by the airline. When nearly out of fuel from circling to wait out the fog delay, the plane was forced to land in an airport with no US Customs officials. I've been in this exact situation and it is not the fault of the airline. US Customs will not allow passengers to deplane. Due to the long wait however, these passengers were allowed to deplane into a secure room at the airport where they were provide with pizza, sandwhiches, baby formula, drinks, toilets, etc. In the "what else could go wrong" catagory, the flight was further delayed on the next leg by a slight mechanical failure and the fact that the original flight crew had surpased the legal number of hours they were allowed to fly. Meaning a new crew had to be brought in. This is an FAA regulation -- again, not the fault of the airline.

When the plane finally took off some passengers refused to sign a petition circulated on the plane to demand refunds from the airline. By that, I surmise not everyone felt that NW handled the situation badly. All passengers were given a voucher for phone calls, food and a free plane ticket.

I live in a NW hub city and am rarely pleased with their service. However, when airline employees try their best in a difficult situation, I think we should give them some credit. When this US Customs situation happend to us returning from China, no one fought harder to get us off that plane than our flight crew. After all, they are stuck just like the passengers. I'm not sure how this complicated series of events could have been handled differently by the airline.

travdis

Interersting spin on the story. Do you work for the airline? The reason not everyone signed a petition asking for refund is they expect alot more when the airline is sued for false imprisonment. I remember reading that Northwest paid the passengers trapped on the plane in Michigan a significant sum in a "out of court" settlement a few years ago. The smart Seattle passengers who were trapped on the plane will get involved in a potential lawsuit.

I hope they win!

AAFrequentFlyer

travdis,

Take a chill pill. The 2 stories are night and day. The Detroit fiasco was NWA's fault. They blew it and they pais for it.

This one wasn't. This was a immigration/customs issue.

I would be pissed too if I was a pax, but at the end there wasn't much the airline could do.

GoTravel

and you know the Today Show does a horrible job presenting the story. Ann whatshername was trying to put a really bad spin on the story when the two people interviewed had some understanding that the airlines wasn't entirely at fault.

The really bad story was Matt Lauer trying to make the US look bad by not giving enough money soon enough to the Tsunami disaster. He sounds like a pi$$ed of 12 year old most of the time.

Ryan

Agree that this really can't be hung on Northwest. It was a highly unfortunate serious of events that has more to do with Murphy's Law than negligence on the part of Northwest.

If you want tighter screening on passengers arriving into the US on international flights and want airlines to follow strict safety guidelines, including maximum crew times, than sometimes things like this are going to happen.

The airline could have bumped the compensation up a bit and should have acted sooner to get food and essentials onto the plane. But when you're at a small airport during a holiday week, pulling all that together in an expediant manner is difficult.

ThePhan

One thing I don't understand about this, however. Why wasn't the flight diverted to Portland, which does have international arrival facilities (NW even has a nonstop flight from Portland to Tokyo), or even Spokane? Portland is about the same distance from Seattle as Moses Lake, and Spokane is not that much farther. Was Portland also fogged in and inaccessible?

rjw_lgb_ca

Oh geez-- bunchargum strikes again!! Lovely troll post...!

travdis

I checked the weather channel site and there was no fog in Portland or Spokane.

Here are my problems with Nothwest Airlines:

They broke their customer service committment on their web page by:

Not going to Portland or Spokane when they knew hours before that Seattle was fogged in.

Not fixing the toliets when they arrived in Moses Lake, Washington

Only offering a silly $200 coupon for a future flight.

Continuing to tell the passengers that they would be leaving any minute when they knew that the flight crew was over their limit.

Flying a new crew in all the way from MPLS (4 hours away) on a broken plane. Couldn't they fly someone in from Portland 1 hour away?

Keeping the people on the plane without food or water for a long period of time.

The flight crew hid in the cockpit and would not come out and talk to passengers.

I could go on and on!

rjw_lgb_ca

First of all, Northwest (and I'm NOT a fan of this airline by any means) had a plane that was LOW ON FUEL that had to land at an airfield that had a runway that could handle a DC-10. The airfield had no facilities to handle such a large number of passengers. The delay started in Amsterdam and simply dominoed out of the airline's control.

NWA then had to find a new crew (the flight time limit is a firm one to ensure passenger safety) that was certified to fly DC-10s. By law, they can't just pull a crew out of, say, an Airbus 320; not only would they be a crewmember short, but the pilots would not necessarily know how to fly the big Douglas metal.

And frankly, if I'm about to fly in a pressurized jet, I want the doors to all shut properly. Just a quirk of mine.

Last point: All the main delays were weather-related, and the airlines by law don't really have to do ANYTHING to compensate passenger inconvenience when delays or lost baggage are weather-related. I just went through this with American, and I was initially angry, but then I thought about it: At least I got there in one piece, and I got my bag the next day. Northwest coughed up $200 vouchers at the gate, and they will be following up with other goodies later. That's pretty generous.

Why are you so riled up, travdis/bunchargum? You weren't on the plane. Are you going to file a lawsuit for "pain and suffering by proxy"? Or are you still upset that you couldn't retire on your blackjack winnings in Vegas even after taking a seminar on that topic...?

Ryan

Travdis,
Does Northwest have a hub in Portland? If not, then why would you expect them to be able to have a crew materialize that is rated to fly a DC10?

Everyday airlines keep a large number of pilots and flight attendants on Reserve. But, it is impractical to keep a crew reserve at every airport that is rated for every aircraft type. Unless of course you're willing to pay about triple what you now do for a ticket.

In terms of the weather, as much they we spend on equipment, there is still an element of unpredicability. You're also assuming that at the time they left Schipol in Amsterdam - at least a full 8 to 10 hours BEFORE they were scheduled to arrive - they would have known about the fog and how long it'd last.

The mere fact that the controller's kept them circling the airport in Seattle leads me to believe that there was some expectation that fog was expected to life much earlier than it did.

This is an unfortunate series of events. As I stated unless you're prepared to pay triple what you now do to let the airlines plan for every possibility, than I suggest you move on. Apparently many of those directly affected - the people on board - have.

Unless of course you're an attorney trying to drum up a 35% cut of the settlement - plus expenses of course.

TC

travdis: You've obviously never been in this situation and sound like you don't travel very much either. To clarify:

You say; "They broke their customer service committment on their web page" (First: where on the NW web page or in any service committment does it cover the specific handling of a weather related grounding?)

You say; "not going to Portland or Spokane when they knew hours before (sometimes fog clears in a matter of minutes, surely in hours it was unpredictable)

that Seattle was fogged in." (An airline has no control over the airport to which they are diverted. Air Traffic Control does that. It depends on weather, incoming and outgoing flights, ground crews, etc. Think about it -- this wasn't the only flight they were trying to handle in a fogged in area.)

You say; "Not fixing the toliets when they arrived in Moses Lake, Washington" (There was nothing wrong with the toilets when they arrived at Moses Lake other than they had been used for many hours. Again, until a plane clears Customs -and that means the whole plane, not just the passengers- no one is allowed to open the doors. This is, again, a US Customs ruling, not an airline rule.)

You say: "Only offering a silly $200 coupon for a future flight." (As stated; they didn't have to offer anything.)

You say; "Continuing to tell the passengers that they would be leaving any minute when they knew that the flight crew was over their limit." (Flight crews fly down to the wire. Depending on the time of departure, the original crew MIGHT have made it. The longer the departure was delayed due to mechanicals or weather, the more serious the crew timing became.)

You say; "Flying a new crew in all the way from MPLS (4 hours away) on a broken plane. Couldn't they fly someone in from Portland 1 hour away?" (This has been explained to you. Again, they don't just have extra crews sitting around doing nothing. Would you want them to pull the crew from your departing flight in Portland to service the flight in Moses Lake?)

You say; "Keeping the people on the plane without food or water for a long period of time." (Just not true.)

You say; "The flight crew hid in the cockpit and would not come out and talk to passengers." (And how would you know this?? Were you on the flight? I doubt that the entire flight crew would fit in that tiny cockpit or don't you consider the attendents part of the crew?)

You're starting to sound like a lawyer trolling for clients.

RandyK

I've logged more than a million miles on NWA in the last 10 years and while they ocassionally tick me off (like yesteray when our upgrades didn't go through for the 3 of us and first class flew with just 2 passengers), I generally am happy with them. I don't see this one as an issue for NWA. They don't control customs and immigration, the weather or the new levels of security that are part of airline travel post 9/11.

Short of blowing the emergency exit there was nothing that they could do. (Using the emergency exits would have also made it impossible for that plane to fly for another day or 2 while the mechanism was replaced.)

I can only imagine how awful that flight was for people---the normal Amsterdam to SeaTac run is enough to make the sane insane. I'm glad it wasn't me, but these passengers can only be unhappy with the government. NWA doesn't control this.