Home > Northwest > 2008 > Review

Taken 3 January 2008 from Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN (Minneapolis-St. Paul International (Wold-Chamberlain) Airport) - MSP to Amsterdam (Schiphol) - AMS

Outbound flight was Minneapolis MSP to Amsterdam Schiphol AMS on an Airbus A330 in economy. The flights including connections (from Appleton ATW) were on time, although we made it to the gate from our connection just in time.

The service on that leg was fair. Flight attendants were business-like and the food was not bad.

The seats were uncomfortable: the adjustable headrests were unpleasant no matter how they were set, and the space was too cramped for such a long flight.

Finally, the on-demand entertainment was glitchy and the selection was mediocre.

The return flight was Amsterdam AMS to Detroit to Minneapolis MSP with the transatlantic flight again on an Airbus A330.

This time, the food was the worst I've had on any airline, and the flight attendants were unprofessional. They complained audibly and I even heard them loudly and openly badmouthing specific passengers seated in the other cabin while they worked in ours!

The seats were the same so again uncomfortable, and the entertainment was exactly the same as before meaning there was nothing of interest left for me to watch or listen to.

When we arrived in Detroit, a lousy experience turned into a disaster. Customs and Homeland Security were so unprofessional and unpleasant that I swore I would never fly through Detroit again, but this sentiment was cemented once we got into the terminal to catch our connection to Minneapolis: the food court personnel were unprofessional and ignorant, the mens' restroom floor was covered in vomit which was cordoned off rather than cleaned up, and to top if off, our connection flight was delayed several times apparently due to loading problems on its previous leg. I can't tell you how lousy Detroit was. I will go out of my way to avoid it at all costs in the future!

When we finally boarded the plane, which was a dirty, rickety old Airbus A319, about an hour and a half late, it was uncertain whether I (and a number of others) would miss my final connection home (to Appleton ATW).

I will hand it to the pilots and MSP crew--they did their best to make up for the Detroit debacle and get us in, but alas, when we deplaned, there were already hotel vouchers waiting for us which confirmed that they'd made me miss my connection by, it turns out, less than ten lousy minutes! I cannot believe that Northwest would not hold the tiny, half-full, LAST puddle jumper home for the night a few more minutes knowing that several of its passengers were only a few minutes late, but alas, we were stuck in Minneapolis overnight until we could catch the first connection out in the morning. Thank goodness I never check luggage as other passengers' was lost or misrouted! By the time we got out of the airport, waited forever for a shuttle, got to the hotel and checked in with our vouchers, there was only time for three hours of sleep before returning to the airport, and to make the whole thing even less pleasant, the plane home was the fantastically uncomfortable, noisy, and slow Saab 340 turboprop rather than the nice smooth regional jet we were supposed to have had NWA gotten us to MSP on time the night before.

I have to say NWA was good about having voucher packs ready for us knowing that they had ruined our flight home, but my point is that they shouldn't have had to do this in the first place! Instead they inconvenienced many passengers as well as our ride home, who had to drive out of town to the airport twice to pick us up. It ended up taking some 27 hours to get home to Wisconsin from Amsterdam!

The only reason I will fly NWA again is because of its routes and hubs in my geographical area, though I will never go through Detroit again! I have written a couple reviews on my domestic flight experiences with NWA as well as this review of my international flight experience with them and can summarize that I think NWA is your classic "C or D student"--they do just enough to not fail, but nothing to compete or be above average in any category.