Now that I've been home for a full day I'm ready to rant about my trip. Let me say this before I go into the rant itself. My week (once I arrived in MN) was amazing. I made some incredible friends that I will hopefully have for the rest of my life. The week was very intense. I connected with a group of women that I spent everyday with all day. We sat together, we worked on a project together, we ate together, we shopped together and we never fought or disagreed or got on one another's nerves. We were inseparable for 6 days 12-15 hours a day. It was amazing. Oh and there were 8 of us that got along this well.
With that said, let me tell you about the travel hell that I experienced through NorthWorst Airlines.
I left for my trip a day early just in case there were some travel issues. I was supposed to have a direct flight on the 24th leaving NH at 5:20pm. You cannot check in online until 24 hours before your flight leaves. So, Saturday morning, I'm finishing packing my last minute items and I remember that I wanted to check in online. So I view my flight information and I no longer have a direct flight and my new flight leaves at 4:16pm. Fortunately, I still had plenty of time. I call NWA and they say, yep your flight was canceled and I say, no one told me and the wonderful customer care man says, that's not my problem.
So, my flight takes off reasonably on time and yet somehow arrives in Detroit a little later than planned. I have 6 minutes to run thru the terminal from Gate 1 to Gate 66. Oh and I had to pee. I take off running, in clogs. I get to the gate sweating and in pain from trying to run in clogs just in time to board. They did push the flight back 10 minutes so the people from my flight could make the connection to MN.
Now, picture this. We're sitting on this plane and it is packed. They finish loading the luggage and we push back from the gate and as we're sitting there on the runway, the power on the plane goes out, taking the engines with it. So, the pilot comes on and says, folks, we have lost auxiliary power and um, we kind of need that. So, they tow us back to the gate and about an hour later we're ready to leave. Yes, we're ready to take off on the faulty plane. However, when maintenance came out to fix the problem they didn't bring enough fuel to restart the plane. So we waited some more. Oh and because there was no power, there was no air and the plane was HOT and packed. We arrived safely in MN about an hour and 45 minutes late. Not bad for me because it was the end of my trip, however, most people on the plane missed their connections and for others 6 connections were being held.
Now, let's fast forward to my departure. I had a direct flight that was leaving Sunday because I thought the program was ending late on Saturday. Turned out it was ending at noon, so I switched my flight so I could get home at 8 on Saturday night. I get to the airport with all of my new friends and we all say our goodbyes and everyone goes to their respective airports, except one girl, she was flying NWA with me. So, we check our bags, my flight is at 3 and hers is at 5, and it's now 1 so we were going to go have lunch together once we got thru security. She happens to look down before we leave the check in area and notices that her flight is scheduled to leave at 6:40am the next day and no one had notified her. She's got a 2 month old at home and she becomes hysterical because she wants to go home and see him. Can't blame her. I comfort her and ask the agents if she can get on my flight, because mine is going to Detroit and her connecting flight was still on for that night. She was able to get on my flight and we were both ecstatic over this news. However, this plane had a mechanical problem that was fixed, but since the plane was listed as delayed, the luggage was never loaded. So, the plane left an hour late and I missed my connecting flight by 7 minutes with no more flights out of Detroit until morning.
NWA was going to put me up in a hotel, so I ask them to pull my luggage and they tell me that they requested it and to go to baggage claim. I go to baggage claim and while I'm waiting, I see my friend's luggage going round the carousel. Now, there are two things odd about that. One, her luggage was supposed to go to SC and two, she was told that her luggage wouldn't be leaving until Sunday because it was checked in to go on her new flight and she flew standby. I go to the NWA baggage services and go through the whole story and they come and pull her bag. I call her to come down and claim her luggage. She does and then she had to go back and check her luggage in again and go back through security. Turned out that her luggage was short sited and was tagged to go back to MN.
I get to the Best Western in MI and it looks like a wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy off the strip Vegas hotel. I literally had to throw my body against my room door to get in because it was warped from the pool. I looked like I was breaking into my room. The maintenance man had to help me get in the first time. It was bad.
Anyway, I got on my flight on Sunday morning and came home safely with no delays and I made sure to spend every penny that NWA gave me in vouchers. When I arrived home I had a $7 voucher left over that I used to buy my mom and her boyfriend food with when they came to pick me up. I didn't want NWA to have a dime back.
I've tried to call NWA several times to calmly, rationally, discuss my trip and due to very high call volumes, they have been unable to complete my calls. Hmmm, is anyone else as shocked about that as I am? I didn't think so.
