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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{ 10 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.