Ok, very interesting day today in watching customer service in action. If you know me, I'm a glass is half full kind of guy. Not today.
Today, I am returning from Orlando and making my way up to Minot, North Dakota. My parents live in Estevan, Saskatchewan which is about two hours north of that. The Canadian Sandquists are having a family reunion tonight with folks coming from all around the country. I've been pretty excited about it, but hadn't had much time to think about it all as I've been heads down preparing for MGX and the 10 1.0 Ship. So needless to say once I had MGX behind me and I started to think about the prospects of seeing folks I haven't seen for years tonight, I got really excited.
This morning I got on the plane in Orlando that was going to get me to Minneapolis. From there I take short flight off to Minot, North Dakota where my Dad would pick me up to drive the rest of the way to Estevan. Estevan is a small town of about 10,000 people and the airport doesn't have commercial flights.
So I'm on board the flight and the captain comes over the speaker to say that we'd be delayed for about 10 minutes. I figure no sweat, I've got an hour and half stop in Minneapolis, I'm fine. The pilot comes on again to say maybe 10 minutes longer. I'm a little nervous now as I know the flight schedules off by heart to Minot from Minneapolis. There's an early morning flight, one in the afternoon (the one I am scheduled for) and a 10:30 pm flight. I figure I should mention this to one of the flight attendants so I can see how long they are really thinking it will take.
One thing that drives me insane is when people are rude to the flight attendants when there are delays. I'm pretty sure its not their fault and when there are mechanical problems they aren't in control of the mechanics. Heck, that is what unions are for. :-> So when I talk to the attendant and explain that I really need to get on the afternoon flight Minot out of Minneapolis as I have family reunion it bothers me a bit when she rudely tells me to "call the 1-800" number and walks away.
The rancher from North Dakota sitting next me jokes, "Hey I thought they only did that when you were an ass to them". I waited a bit longer as the captain came over the speaker to say just 10 more minutes. I decided to stand up to make my call to the 1-800 and stretch my legs at the same time. I notice that most of the first class cabin was cleared out and they no have the door open to the gate.
I find out they sent a number of folks on First Class to another gate to Minneapolis. I grab my bags to see if I can get on that plane (my wife calls me a luckbox as things usually work out my way), but not today. Its full. (with the first class passengers from my original flight). There is no way I am going to make my afternoon flight to Minot. The Northwest attendant books me onto the 10:30 pm flight to Minot, I call my folks to give them the bad news. Their bummed, a few of my cousins fly out in the morning, so I won't see them. The attendant apologizes again and says, "Man. We screwed up". She also could not print me a boarding pass as there was more than 6 hours until my flight out of Minneapolis.
I get into Minneapolis and try and get a boarding pass for my flight to Minot and the attendant at the desk couldn't find me one. He finally grumbles, "Look can you just go the main ticketing desk in the main terminal? You have plenty of time!" I decide to go for walk and find the supervisor to respectfully vent about my day and see if I can get a boarding pass from him without having to make the trek in and out of security.
After about 30 minutes, I finally tracked down a supervisor and had a great discussion about the day. He was apologetic and said , "Sir, since we declared bankruptcy the flight attendance and staff really just don't care for the passengers anymore. I know they should, but they don't". He did bump me up to first class, apologized profusely and I made my way to find a wifi connection where I could plug-in and charge my laptop. I tried to see if I could get a first class lounge pass and he said we only do that for international delays.
It is kind of poetic justice I guess that Channel 9, is modelled after the transparency found by United Airlines. Today my experience by Northwest was not transparent. If they had been transparent I could have gotten on a different airline and made my way to the family reunion. So that's been my day. It is not the end of the world, I think a few of the folks who are attending the reunion will be going for brunch tomorrow and I'll have less of a hangover tomorrow too.
I did make one amazing discovery at the Minneapolis Airport. I found a sweet location to plug-in your laptop and get on the airport. The TGI Fridays in terminal C has a long table of stools with ample plug ins. The food is ok and I can relax here for the next 4 hours while I wait for my flight.
It is always hard to find a good power source at airports, so while sitting here I started up a Wiki to begin tracking power sources and Wi-Fi locations at airports across the globe. (I'll fine tune it a bit more later). Hopefully this can become something as cool as my Getting Things Done Toolkit Wiki.
More later... Off to eat a "steak" at TGI Fridays with a plastic knife.
Postscript: My favorite post about airlines is this one by Rick Segal. With my Treo I had faster information to flights than the flight attendants or the gateworkers. Kayak.com was actually giving me the number of available seats on the flights.
If you are in the Minneapolis airport pop on over to TGI Friday's we're having a blogger meetup in terminal C.
Post-Postscript: Scoble contrasts his Southwest experience with Northwest
Post-Post (bored at the airport) script: I decided a Flickr photogroup for tracking power outlets is a better idea.
technorati tags: Flight+Delays, Northwest+Airlines, AirPower
