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NWA Has Some Good Ex-Employees - Here is one: Professor James Dixey.
NWA Has Some Good Employees - #5
Even I can not help but have empathy for people like this. Names have been removed to protect the innocent. NWA employee comments are in black, my replies are in brown and underlined for the benefit of blind people who are using a screen reader.
Posted by ***** on March 31, 1999 at 23:17:34:
Thank you for your web site. I think it’s necessary and hopefully some good will come from the creators efforts. I especially applaud the webmaster allowing Northwest Airline employee’s comments to be published. I have been a pilot at Northwest Airlines for about ** years now. I’ve seen a lot in this short time. It is true we have some rude employees. I’ve seen it. I like to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was a good person who had a bad day. Maybe not. Here is how a customer should handle it: Write a letter. Before you quit reading in disgust, you should know that it can work. And you don’t need the persons name. I for one wouldn’t give my name to an irate customer. If you write “The pilot on flight 45 from MSP to SEA on March 31, 1999” or “the male gate agent with the nametag ‘Rick’ who wears glasses and has brown hair” then the employee can be identified. One or two complaints won’t get much attention. But several will. I empathize with the traveling public and I empathize with the rank-and-file NWA employee. Traveling is no fun anymore. It is crowded, busy, confusing, and dehumanizing. I commute to work (on an airplane) and I dread it. But I must say that the vast vast majority of NWA personnel are outstanding in my opinion. And this is even more remarkable when one considers the way our management has treated its own employees after we all took wage concessions to save the company from bankruptcy created by a leveraged buyout we wanted nothing to do with. But that is another story. And I am compelled to add my observation that I have seen far more rude and “scamming” customers than NWA employees. I could write a book of some outrageous customer behavior. Fortunately, the vast majority of customers are pleasant, which again is amazing considering what I know they have been through. And the bad ones? Well, maybe they are a good person pushed over the edge and just having a bad day.
As to scamming customers, all businesses have to deal with the less savory elements of the public such that they do not alienate the good customers. A retail store loses some product through shoplifting but they can not and do not treat every customer as if they are a shoplifter. The same principle applies to travelers, I do not doubt that there are some travelers who come up with novel ways to scam airlines. But if there is any doubt at all a reputable business must come down in favor of the consumer.
My personal experience has been that 9 out of ten NWA employees are pleasant. But even then they often do the bare minimum and simply pass the buck. I understand why, but I still can not accept the end result.
And I personally have never had any difficulty with flight crew. I have received a few complaints from people who have though.
And then there are the ten percent who go out of their way to be rude. Take my experience, four flights, three of which were unacceptable. And even worse than the initial infractions is the fact that the company treats the passengers like cattle, and they don't even put us out of our misery.
It is a fact of life that people remember and talk about what they dislike far longer than what was done right. Air travel is as much about service as it is moving people from point A to point B. There is absolutely no way that NWA can continue to prosper with the current level of problems and the poor attitude.
I agree with those who have said that management stinks. But you will all sink or swim together. You either fix the problems, no doubt by ousting the incompetent upper management, or the company is ultimately doomed to fail.
Personally I doubt that the company is salvageable. It is very difficult to recover once a companies reputation is damaged as severely as is NWA's. If I was in your shoes I would be looking for another employer.
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