Tag Archives: Northwest Airlines

Flight Wisdom Briefing 6

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This is Briefing 6. Welcome to our new subscribers on iTunes. Since last time, we did a bit of a movie opener in honor of Peter Graves and Airplane, we decided to try another random one that had been lurking in our heads. Feel free to tweet or comment with the movie title if you recognized it. We’ll continue to adjust the opening and closing until we find one or several with enduring amusement. If this is how it sounds at Brief 6, imagine how good we’ll be at it by Brief 60. Keep listening.

Come Fly the Unfriendly Skies

On Friday, a passenger on a Northwest flight set off a small explosive device shortly before landing in Detroit. The man, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, was subdued. He had connected in Amsterdam to the flight from a KLM flight inbound from Lagos, Nigeria. He had been rescreened in Amsterdam, as is standard procedure there. The device failed to fully detonate, and has been described as a mixture of liquid and powder, and were described as more incendiary than explosive.

What Happened on Northwest Flight 188?

The Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports that the two pilots who overflew Minneapolis last week have advised the NTSB that the reason they lost track of time they were “discussing the new monthly crew flight scheduling system.” The system was put in place as part of Northwest’s merger with Delta Air Lines. They both admitted accessing their personal laptops while they discussed this, something which is in violation of company policy.

How Do Two Pilots Overshoot an Airport?

Pilots of a flight from San Diego to Minneapolis ignored radio calls and flew over 150 miles past the airport. The military was even prepared to intercept. All in all, the pilots of Northwest Flight 188 were nonresponsive for 78 minutes, covering a distance of over 600 miles. With all the attempts to contact them, flashing lights in the cockpit, etc, it is a mystery why this was.

Delta Protects the Northwest Brand While Eliminating It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZKpCJEqNE Northwest Airlines insists it has exclusive trademark rights to the word Northwest. The airline is going after GoNorthwest.com, which provides tourist information on the Pacific Northwest. Originally, they insisted owner Jack High shut down, then they moderated their response to merely giving up trademark rights and not expanding. High registered his trademark, which looks…

Flight Wisdom Breaks Fiddles

We enjoyed Dave Carroll’s unique approach to speaking out against customer service. Apparently we were not alone in this. It seems a lot of people did. It struck a chord with Westjet, the Canadian discount airline, which invited Dave not only to jam with them, but to fly with them next time. While we were…

News from Delta

Delta has been up to a lot lately, and we’ve decided to devote an entire post to talking about several significant things they’ve done in the last week. Delta is expanding a marketing alliance with Midwest Airlines, best known for its fresh-baed cookies. The agreement extends Midwest’s marketing agreement with Northwest Airlines to Delta, which…

Delta to Consolidate Regional Airlines

Delta Air Lines has announced plans to consolidate some of the functions of the regional airlines it owns. Comair, Mesaba, and Compass Airlines will have their customer service and ramp workers merged into one company called Regional Handling Services(RHS). The other parts of the airlines will continue to operate independently, but this may be the…

More Noise, More News

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by Jose P Isern Comas via Flickr"][/caption] Responding to “Obama fervor”, AirTran Airways is adding more flights to Washington D.C. for the inauguration. On January 21st, following the inauguration, they will increase service from Baltimore Washington to Atlanta and Milwaukee and Washington Dulles to Atlanta. United is launching service from…

Service Shockers and Surprises

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="202" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] Time to update all of you on some service updates and enhancements that have been happening. Delta Air Lines announced it would inaugurate service from Paris to Pittsburgh and Raleigh-Durham. The new transatlantic route out of Pittsburgh will be the only transatlantic service offered out of that city,…

Northwest is ‘joining’ Delta

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by matt.hintsa via Flickr"][/caption] We knew this was coming, but the day is finally here. This evening, Skymiles account holders that we are, we received an email from Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines, announcing that Northwest Airlines was now part of Delta, but it would be business as…

Bereavement Fare Update

A while back, we commented on bereavement fares. Despite the popularity of this subject, as it comes upon people urgently, we haven’t revisited it since. USA Today’s Bill McGee recently did, and we decided it was good to update our rundown. Many airlines are not forthcoming about their policies, and require a call and specifics…

Weekend Update

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="202" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] TAM will begin daily flights from Sao Paulo to Orlando on November 21st. TAM and Air Canada will be codesharing and expanding an effort to provide increased services between Brazil and Canada. A new partnership between Irish carrier Aer Lingus and United Airlines is available for sale on…

Delta-Northwest Merger Seems Certain

Delta and Northwest have put up a website, announced a merger, , and are scheduled to webcast their official press conference on Tuesday morning. Such a move can trigger a wave of additional consolidation within the industry, as airlines line up to compete with a new mega-carrier. The consolidation of services, like with USAirways, once…

The Long Long Roundup

We’ve been very behind lately. We keep saying we’ll catch up, but life happens. We are committed to providing the best in airline news and commentary we possibly can, but we do have day jobs, of course. Delta received preliminary approval to fly from New York’s JFK Airport to Bogota, Columbia. Spirit Airlines announced starting…

Delta and Northwest To Merge

An anonymous source at Delta has reported that the rumored Delta-Northwest merger will be announced next week. The merger will use the Delta name, and retain the Delta headquarters in Atlanta, as well as the Delta CEO. The consolidation, long rumored in the news, would unify the two carriers. The previous industry merger unified US…

Service Roundup – Getting Back on Track

Air Canada will be offering nonstop service from Ottawa to Frankfurt beginning June 1st as well as nonstop service from Toronto-Dusseldorf six times weekly beginning May 1st…and a second daily nonstop from Calgary-Frankfurt on April 14th. American Eagle began nonstop service today from Flint’s Bishop International Airport and New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Service will be…

Catching Up – New Service and More

Midwest Airlines has added the option to purchase a customized Travel Guard single-trip travel insurance policy specifically for Midwest customers during the ticket purchase process on the Midwest Airlines website and through their other distribution means. We love trip insurance….it protects you from the horror stories we often collect about horrible situations that have happened…

Roundup – New Service, Safety, and Soft Drinks

Airtran has signed a new three year contract with Coca-Cola. Onboard, you can get Coca-Cola Classic®, Diet Coke®, Sprite®, Sprite Zero(TM), Coca-Cola Zero(TM), Minute Maid® Lemonade, Dasani® Water, Cherry Coke(TM), Cherry Coke Zero(TM) and three types of Minute Maid® juices. Poor Pepsi. Has anyone signed with them lately? Air France-KLM announced last week they would…

Roundup – Cargo Pants, Drunkeness, New Construction and More…

Northwest CEO Doug Steenland continues to apologize for Northwest’s flight cancellation. Northwest continues to blame the problem on pilots, however, instead of blaming their own practices. Northwest Airlines and the Airline Pilots Association confirmed an agreement on contract issues and work rules to help improve the problem, the agreement implements contractual changes on work rules…

Let’s Talk China

China…land of a thousand aviation opportunities…and a lucrative destination to gain for an airline. The DOT is once again accepting bids for new service to China. We’ve put off talking about these developments…but it is time to review the candidates. American Airlines has applied to operate Chicago to Beijing service. They even have a website,…