NWA: The "Wounded Duck" Reappears as the Logo

The Journal-Sentinel provides a couple of chapters--and here's another from a faithful blog-reader (1 of 4).

Let me tell you how my day went as I sit in a hotel room on a night I should be home with my wife, 3-year old son, and 1-year old son BECAUSE THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A DAY TRIP.

Flight this morning from Madison to Detroit that was booked for 10:30 a.m. was cancelled (no reason given). Rescheduled for 6:00 a.m. departure. Waste of 4.5 hours.

Flight back to Madison was scheduled to depart Detroit around 5:00 p.m. I show up at the airport and the flight was cancelled. So I was booked on the 7:30 pm flight. Some agents were claiming weather but weirdly it was nice in Detroit and I have been told numerous times on previous flights we are "flying around a storm." So the 7:30 p.m. flight was delayed to 8:00 p.m. due to weather (perfectly acceptable, lightning present).

Weather clears, we were informed the flight crew was on the way from the other side of the airport "then we can start boarding". 30 minutes later, the gate agent says the flight crew arrived. 10 minutes after that they say the flight crew has reached their "time limit" and they were looking for a new flight crew.

Pilot gets on the speaker and explains time limit of 14 hours, which was nice but no one cared, just wanted to get home.

Another 30 minutes later, the gate agent says "we have good news and bad news, the good news is that they are NOT cancelling the flight, the bad news is that the flight will leave tomorrow at 7:30 a.m."

Great delivery, I am sure everyone felt that was good news. (/sarcasm)

NWA offers a hotel room, "just go to Gate 41". Oh really...gate 41 has a line 2 miles long. I would still be standing there if I would have waited.

So I sit at the Rodeway with a picture of my family. I should be giving my sons a kiss goodnight but somebody on your end really screwed up....big time. Try flying on your own airline once. So adding up the 4.5 wasted hours this morning then taking into account weather delays until 8:00 p.m. with my next flight at 7:30 a.m. equates to 16 hours of wasted time at $100 per hour. I will be invoicing you $1,600 for wasted time. Please issue a purchase order for this amount.

Tell you what, I deal with customers everyday as a sales & marketing executive...if I would treat our customers the way you treat yours, I would be out of business (maybe where you are headed). Forward this to your CEO, I'll take over as CMO, $800,000 salary with a minimum bonus potential of $2MM annually, 3-years guaranteed, and I'll help turn this ship around.

Your customer service needs a revolution.

Only 16 hours? Whassamatta you, complaining??