Posts Tagged ‘NW20’

My NW7 World Business Class face.	My NW20 screeming babies/stuipd people face

If you know me well, you know I’m a fan of Seinfeld. One of the better episodes is when Jerry and Elaine are flying back to New York and Jerry is bumped to First Class while Elaine is shoved back to Coach. That episode, although slightly exaggerated, is just about spot on. I stated out with my flight to Tokyo on NWA7 in World Business Class. Everything went well, the lounges were great although crowded and I was greeted with a pre-flight campaign once I boarded. During the flight, they provided an amenity kit as well as slippers, two meals, free drinks (two glasses of wine in my case), and lie flat bed with massaging functions and a complete AVOD. Everyone in the WBC cabin were of sound mind, and there were no screaming vomiting babies.

My return flight to MSP was cut short, due to a snow storm in Sapporo which caused my connecting flight to be canceled. Stranded at the airport, I called NWA and made new reservations for the following day however they only flight that was available was NWA20 which was a direct flight using a 744. When I made my reservations I specifically chose the NWA8 to SEA because it was in their newer fleet of A330-200 with AVOD and power outlets in some forward coach seats. Furthermore, there was no chance of upgrading to WBC for NWA20 and everything else was booked. I had no choice, I wanted to get home as soon as possible so I took the NWA20 flight. As suspected, none of the coach seats were equipped with AVOD. The seats were the same coach crap you find on domestic 757 flights, the only perk was they handed out some newspapers and I was in the front of the coach section. Boarding went smoothly, although I’ll never figure out why everyone is always in such a rush to get on the damn plane. Unless your flying F class, there is NO reason you need to form a massive line to stand waiting to get on a plate you’ll already be on for 10+ hours, you already have seat assignments, no one is going to steal your seat. Why anyone would want to spend MORE time on that piece of crap is beyond me, so instead I sat at the gate until the line was gone. Everything was going ok until about an hour into the flight, when it was announced there was a medical emergency. Apparently someone had an ulcer. Thankfully who ever it was was well enough to continue the flight to MSP, and there was a doctor on board who was able to provide medical assistance. Then the crying began. There was a baby sitting behind me that literally cried the rest of the flight and another child who felt it was best to run around the airplane making noise. I’m now convinced they should stow babies and or children in the baggage compartment (sedated, naturally). I felt bad for the parents, who did their best to calm their screaming child, but in the end their efforts were futile as the kid continued to vocalize his discontent. After dinner was served, I (along with everyone else), proceeded to the lavatory. There was a line so I stood and waited for my turn. A woman who also had to use the facilities, ignored the line and attempted to open the bathroom door despite the fact it was obviously occupied. After about a minute of this, she finally figured it out although once the person exited she proceeded to again ignore the line. I didn’t really care, she obviously was an idiot and had no concept of a “line”, thankfully the gentleman behind me was nice enough to yell at her and told me to go next. As expected the NWA stewardesses were blunt, but to be honest after working around crowds of stupid angry people for however many years I would be the same way if not worse. After all the screaming and stupidity, we finally landed but it was not over! Right after we touched down, someone thought it was best to get a head start and stood up and proceeded to the exit before we had left the runway. Naturally this caused much deserved yelling to sit his ass down, which he did after finally figuring out what he was doing was dangerous.

I guess NWA20 was not as bad as the Seinfield coach class, but it was close. I’m sure everyone who flies enough has these horror stories to tell, this is just a sampling of my flying experiences most of which are positive. The two people sitting next to me were great to talk to, and the stewardesses were very nice to me since I wasn’t a moron. I guess the moral of the story is to reserve flights on A330 instead of 744 if your flying NWA (or delta now), don’t miss connecting flights listen to the flight crew, and don’t be an idiot.