http://www.nwa.com
5101 Northwest Drive
St. Paul, MN 55111-3034
Note: Northwest airlines has been acquired by Delta Air Lines.
(612) 726-2111
(800) 225-2525
How to get through to an operator
dial * followed by 0 and 0 after the initial greeting.
Overview
Northwest Airlines does things strictly by the book. Which has its pros and cons (but mostly, cons). The upside: if Northwest doesn’t follow its own rules, you will probably get what you are asking for. The downside? Don’t ask for any exceptions. Here, the old “no waivers, no favors” rule always appears to be in effect. Its customer service agents have come up with a thousand different ways to say “no” – all of which makes Northwest one of the most complained-about airlines flying today.
If you have a customer complaint, please read this before contacting the company.
Customer service resources
Contract of carriage (PDF download)
Customer service main page
Email form
Primary e-mail
Primary contact
Beth Reed
Director, customer care and refunds
PO Box 1908
Minot, ND 58702
(701) 420-6282
Fax: (651) 367-8459
beth.reed@nwa.com
Secondary contact (*):
Andrew C. Roberts
Executive vice president, operations
(612) 726-2111
andrew.roberts@nwa.com
Chief executive (*):
Douglas M. Steenland
President and chief executive officer
(612) 726-2111
DMSteenland@nwa.com
What others have to say about Northwest Airlines
Aviation Consumer Protection Division Air Travel Consumer Report
Consumeraffairs.com
Epinions.com
Airline Quality Rating
This information has been collected from publicly-available resources and is believed to be accurate at the time of the last update. If any of this information is inaccurate, please e-mail me.
* Executives should only be contacted when your letter or email has not been acknowledged within six to eight weeks.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
NW has its problems but it is certainly trying to do right. I was in Fort Lauderdale this year. A morning departing flight was delayed because the plane was not working. The airline flew an empty plane from Atlanta to take us all to Detrioit. In the end we were only an hour late–most people made thair connections. That saved a lot of email complaints.
My wife and I purchased six rt airfares on NWA for travel from SeaTac to Honolulu.My son was not able to get leave from the Army in time to fly to Hawaii with us.I sent an email to NWA Customer Service explaining the predicament we were facing [we wanted to have all of our grown children in Hawaii for Christmas with us].We requested in lieu of the paid for rt airfares,six vouchers for future travel for any destination that NWA serves in the continental US,and were willing to pay the extra cancellation[which I feel is WAY too much]fee to cancel the resrvations.
I emailed Customer Service at NWA ten days ago and have not even been extended the dignity of a reply.
I have flown NWA numerous times since 1976[when it Northwest Orient Airlines],even on NWA in the summer of ‘05.I understand that I should have been more on the power curve when it came to insuring vacation dates,but it would appear to me to be a small matter for NWA to help us out on this………
I am writing this note on behalf of my mother Ottilie Niedermaier , who at this moment (1526 on 1/8/08) is on her way back to Germany.
After an uncomplicated travel to Detroit things turned bad in every aspect. After passing through customs in Detroit her luggage was taken from her to be rechecked to disappear without a trace. It has not been found since. Next her flight (#294) from DTW to CLE was postponed over night. As may elderly mother (83 years!) speaks only minimal English, my wife and I tried to help find her luggage. We spent endless hours on the phone between 12/23 and today 1/6. Nobody appeared to be willing to directly to talk to anybody, esp. luggage services in Detroit, not to mention physically check in the unidentified luggage area or walk to customs to check there. At one point, after pointing out, her limited language skills,that “everybody in Germany speaks English”. Today, after helping her to check in for her flight back to NUE, I asked to send a message to DTW to have an electric cart for her ready, I was told they cannot call or send messages to DTW. I hoped, that my mother as a gesture of Good Will would be able to get an upgrade or some other response.
In short, the commitment to customer service has been missing!
I am looking forward to your response.
The luggage tracking # is CLENW60237. She is on flights NW 5831, MW 68, and KL 1883.
Sincerely
Otfried Niedermaier
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I have never experienced such a mess as I have w/ NWA. I have been trying to contact the customer care line for days, all it does is play the same message over and over again. I am not getting a live person at all. I have emailed, said it could take 1-2 weeks. I do not have that long to wait.
My business spends thousands on NWA a year and I will not use them again. Nor will I ever use them on a personal vacation ever.
I have been unable to contact a human to discuss using my Worldperks balance. I am considering not using NW Airlines again. Please let me know how to contact a human representative.
I have had so many issues with Northwest over the last year I swear I will never use them again. They don’t have any customer service and could care less if they had your business or not. I have no idea how to actually reach anyone who has “authority” to help me. Everyone on the phone says they can’t. Why do they pay these people to answer the phone and do nothing? It is such a mess and all I want is someone qualified to have an intelligent conversation with and can provide me some assistance with my issues. I have lost faith that this will ever happen. I have washed my hands of them and they will no longer be getting any of my money!!
A friend who works at a Northwest Reservation Center said that the operators there are told to provide people who call with complaints with a mailing address and to address their complaints to the attention of “Ellie Hayes” (or something similar at least). There is, however, no “Ellie Hayes” employed by Northwest Airlines, and letters addressed to that name are trashed unanswered.
So, don’t call reservation centers in the hope of getting a complaint resolved and don’t send any complaints to “Ellie Hayes”!
It may be worth noting that one of Minnesota’s Congressional Representatives, James Oberstar, is the chair of the House Committee on Transportation. Since Northwest is for the moment a Minnesota-based business, it couldn’t hurt to copy him with any complaints you might send to Northwest.
Dear Sir or Madam,
Last summer we booked a round trip to Puerto Rico, NWA flight 289 Feb 21 at 6:30 AM to Memphis and NWA flight 1790 to Puerto Rico. Return flight was direct Puerto Rico to DTW flight 1790 leaving at 9:20 AM on March 3rd.
On March 2nd we went to the internet to check in and get seat assignments. And could find nothing about our flight. We called Northwest and the attendant could find nothing about it. He turned us over to Reservations and we encountered our savior, the mystery wonder woman. She found our data realized that equipment reduction cancelled our return flight 1790 and no one had rebooked us to other flights.
This woman worked the system for over 45 minutes to find the problem and to get us on our way home. She booked us on American flight 2202 to Miami at 445 PM and American flight 390 at 805 PM to Detroit. Both flights were Priority Access.
At 659 PM we were asking her name and the system shut down the connection before we could get it This woman and NWA deserves our most sincere thanks to find the error and make repairs. If you can find her make her employee of the moment.
Sincerely,
Thomas E. Besemer 436 192 654
Gary S. Cendrowski 841796 104
http://www.n-media.net
I’ve spent about an hour trying to combine my Worldperks miles with Delta Skymiles.
I don’t know my pin number for either program. I need you to send me an email where I do combine miles. My Mac Mini cannot open an attachment, so I need you to send the form via a PDF.
Thank you.
http://www.fuminyang.com/?p=203
I wrote about my recent experience with North West.
Our 15-year old grandson had reservations for a flight from Tulsa, OK to Detroit to Ft. Wayne this morning leaving at 6:00 a.m.; therefore, we arrived at the Tulsa Delta/Northwest checkin area at 4:35 a.m. (85 minutes prior to flight time). There were people everywhere at the counter and in lines not moving. There were only three attendants at the counter trying to take care of all these people. Not all the checkin machines were working; consequently, things were really balled up. Our grandson was still in security when his name was called for the flight. I fly very, very seldom so I don’t know if it is normal that all airlines close their gates 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure but that is what happened this morning with this flight. The gate was closed and nobody around with whom to speak.
We went back down to the checkin area and found people who were in the lines while we were that had also missed their flights because of all the problems. We were hearing that several people missed their flights due to the unorganization of the area, especially in helping people who do not fly frequently and know the ropes of checking in on the machines.
Living west of Bartlesville, means another 100-mile trip tomorrow to attempt to get him off and home. More employees are needed in the checkin area in Tulsa. I am very sorry to say but I will put forth every effort to keep from making reservations through Northwest again and I heard this statement over and over while there this morning. This experience has been expensive for us not only in purchasing the ticket and paying for luggage but also the expense of traveling to Tulsa and back twice. The ladies who did help us were very nice but they were overwhelmed with all the work that had to be done in a certain timeframe.
What was supposed to be a good experience for our grandson, was not only a disaster for him but very upsetting for his grandparents also.
After 12 frustrating calls to NWA, I finally contacted KLM Customer Care by dialing +31 20 545 9780. A person answered the phone and resolved the problem immediately. My NWA experience? 9 disconnects, 2 referrals to their website, and one “We’re too busy to take your call. Goodbye.”
There are some airlines which care about customer service, please stop giving money to the ones that don’t…
I’m greatly saddened that NWA has stopped service to LBE, Latrobe Pennsylvania. The flights were always 50-100% full when I traveled. The residents of the area are left with the only choice to fly out of Pttsburgh. (No other airlines flies into LBE.)
I will be limiting my use of NWA in the future.
Edward Johnson recently traveled from LaGuardia, New York to Minneapolis to Bozeman, Montana. His confirmation number is OSF3ZV. He flew MSP BAZ NW12273 17 July 2009 LGA MSP NW 183 17 July 2009
He had 3 pieces of luggage, 2 small duffle bags and one fly rod carried in a light weight aluminum tube. When he arrived to check in two pieces of luggage he was told by a NW official/supervisor that he was required to check his short aluminum tube with fly rod. The supervisor said it would be at additional cost of $125.00. Two bags were $15.00 the first and $25.00 the second. When told and forced to check his rod he retracted the second bag and took that on board with him. Thus forced to check his fishing rod at $125.00, he took one bag on board the flight and checked the other, presumably at $15.00. The passenger Edward Johnson questioned the supervisor, saying he was never in the past required to check his rod; it is an expensive piece of equipment and is an item in the past that has been frequently stolen. The supervisor refused to listen to him and said here is your receipt. You have paid with AMEX and so deal with AMEX about a refund of the $125.00. We have been dealing with AMEX and you ever since. The receipt says nothing about a refund. NW charged for 3 bags, with the rod at $125.00. Either you need to refund the entire $165.00 or if you are honest refund what is owed us, $125.00. Only two small bags (1 duffle and one small aluminum tube) were checked through, not three. This is an egregious theft by NW of an honest traveler, 64 years of age who was deferential to this supervisor who illegally stated all fly rods were required to be checked through at $125.00. We do not want to have to take this to court but if it is not settled within the next 5 days we will.
Edward M. Johnson
Elizabeth Childs-Johnson,
757-478-9755 (cell)
email: echildsjohnson@gmail.com
I booked a $900 flight from Columbus Ohio to Copenhagen through Detroit and Amsterdam. All went well till I got back to Detroit to come back to Columbus. There we had a plane, a crew, passengers were boarded, hand luggage checked and the pilot was ready to push back from the gate.Then we told to get off the plane it was going to Cincinnati. We did, then we were told a plane from NY would be there shortly and they said it was in the air, when it would arrive and when it would depart, and when we would arrive in Columbus. The plane never arrived and after weight 5 hours they canceled the flight claiming it was canceled do to weather. It was obvious to every one on the flight that sending the first plane to Cin. was an economic decision. The weather in Detroit and Columbus was fine and a false report was interred into the computer so they would not have to pay hotel bills ($116). They keep us waiting so long that the airport hotel ran out of rooms and I finally got a room about midnight (after being up for 30 hrs.). I am an ex-air force multi-engine pilot and it was obvious to me and the rest of the passengers that the first plane was diverted due to economic considerations. The second flight was never in the air, and the cancellation due to weather was not true. I felt sorry for people at the desk since they could get no one on the phone or could get no supervisors to show up and to top it off their computers quit functioning.The least you could do is pay my hotel bill or double my frequent flayer miles (206225810) on the total trip and make sure in the future you tell the truth and don’t enter false information on an aviation report.
I’ve figured out how Northwest Airlines’ Lost & Found works.
1. When the plane lands in its last destination each day, a cleaning crew (contractors) empties everything out of the plane. But sometimes they miss a few things. So your item may end up in another airport in the next day or two. Your aircraft was not ‘assigned’ to any specific route — it could go anywhere. No one at Northwest can tell you where your plane went after you got off, as that violates their “security rules” (???).
2. Northwest Airlines will not call you or try to contact you in any way, even if they have your stuff and know your name and phone number (from, say, a business card found inside).
3. You are expected to figure out which airport to call. Baggage Claim counter employees routinely do not answer the phone (some do, sometimes). No one knows how to figure out where your aircraft went after you got off of it. All records are deleted (moved to microfiche) after 9 days, making additional research impossible for anyone (unless you’re the FAA).
4. You’ll never get your stuff back. Eventually, they send it to a giant store in a small town, Scottsboro, Alabama (not kidding — go to unclaimedbaggage.com) where the locals go wild over ridiculously low prices on your luggage, iPod, jewelry, cameras, clothing, etc. Gotta sell it cheap — they claim to get 7,000 new items every day (read, 7,000 unhappy travelers per day).
That’s a fair summary of Northwest Airlines Lost & Found system (or lack thereof). You’d think part of their employee training for returning your belongings would include “using a computer” and “dialing a phone.”
Or even, “Please tell me the airport where you’re holding my valuables.”
Now you know why lost stuff is never found.