by Stephanie Anderson
I was quite excited to see Uncle Ole, so his plane being continually delayed didn't really bother me. (He probably had a different perspective as he had started in Anchorage at 8am.) He was supposed to leave Minneapolis at 7pm Monday evening. We had time for one beer, but then the screen changed to "Departure 8:45"... time for another. We squeezed in a couple more Coronas before his flight finally boarded at 9:30pm CST.
In the only prompt move they made all day, Northwest had the flight from MSP to Fort Myers, FL in the air by 9:40. When I talked to Ole on Tuesday, I was more than surprised to find that he hadn't landed in Ft. Myers(RSW) until 7am.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line (well, except for the trajectory of the earth, winds, etc.), so the plane took about 3 hours to get to its destination in Florida. Unfortunately, RSW was fogged in, and after missing two instrument approaches and circling for 45 minutes, the flight re-routed to Miami to refuel.
Of course, NWA didn't ring up their people and tell them to receive this flight in Miami, so when they arrived, no Northwest employees were available to man a gate or operate a jetway. They parked the plane out on the tarmack and told the passengers it was because Miami Inaternational Airport was CLOSED. Right.
No one was allowed off the plane... for security reasons. After a couple hours, the passengers travelling with small dogs complained that their dogs HAD TO GO. Fine, the flight crew would allow the dogs off the plane, but not the owners. Two small dogs were escorted out for a break by a flight attendent. While the door was open, one female passenger panicked and made a dash for it. The crew caught her and were able to calm her down, get the dogs back on the plane and close the door without any escapes.
Naturally, the passengers were hungry, so the good people of Northwest said they would "open up the galley and they could have anything they wanted." But, snackboxs are still $5 and peanuts/trailmix $3. This announcement was greeted by cabin-wide booing.
After about 3 hours on the ground, a man in First Class stood up and demanded to be let off the plane and given a rental car. He could have been in Fort Myers by now. Even the elite were not given special consideration, and this man was eventually coerced back into his seat.
Ole was glad for those few beers at ol' MSP, enabling to find a bit of humor in this whole debacle.
After 4 hours of captivity, the plane was refueled and given a clearance to depart. One of the flight attendents looked at her watch and said, "I'm timed out. Let me off the plane." The protests of the Chief Flight Attendent meant nothing to this woman who had worked through a delay in Detroit, again in Minneapolis, and now in cross-coastal Florida. With the way Northwest is treating its employees, why should she work overtime? She got on one phone with the union and one phone with the Northwest representative and was excused to go.
Tragically, the flight was now one crew member short of legally making the half-hour flight to Fort Myers. They called a woman in Miami, waited for her to drive to the airport, go through security and find the plane out on the tarmack. After 5 hours on the ground and a sunrise, the flight left for RSW, arriving around 7am.
Northwest felt really bad that it took 10 hours to get their customers from Minneapolis to Fort Myers, and they naturally wanted to compensate the passengers for their inconvenience. So, as everyone deplaned, they were handed a coupon for 25% off of a FULL PRICE Northwest ticket.
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