Posts Tagged ‘NW7’

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An NW A330 next to my gate, not headed to Narita but Amsterdam, poor SkyTeam logo

Sorry this is rather late in coming, to be honest I’ve just had no time to update my blog or upload any pictures, most of this will probably have to wait until I return home. In any case, my flight was uneventful, despite the moderate turbulence which required our flight to divert slightly to the south for the NW7 leg. Once again my NW7 flight was great in Y, two decent meals and an ice cream bar, with free drinks was a nice touch. The IFE was not bad either, although the movie ‘Star Trek’ was not as great as I’d hoped, a few episodes of ‘Fraiser’ and ‘The Office’ made up for it. It was nice to be in Japan if for only two hours, I really wish I had enough time to leave the airport or even spend a night in Tokyo, but my time was limited. By comparison, the NW29 was abysmal hellish experience. As expected, the 744 was terrible compared to the A330, and I was seated next to a strange man, screaming children (naturally), and a fat guy who could not fit in the seat behind me and was only able to read his book by pressing it against my head rest.

Hong Kong customs was just as easy as getting into Japan, and once through I found my travel companion, Matt, waiting at the Burger King like we had planned. I wasn’t able to see much of Hong Kong that night, since my flight got in at 10:30pm, however the one thing I remember and will remember throughout my stay in Hong Kong was the heat and the humidity. Staying a constant 80-90 F with at least 80% humidity meant I was perpetually drenched in sweat. We stayed at the Yesin Hostel, which although small was relatively clean, centrally located, and cheap. I would recommend it for anyone staying in HK on a budget, although all you get is a closet sized room with a bed, and an all in one bathroom.

The next day we headed out and saw the Tian Tan Buddha. Although the Ngong Ping Cable Car was down for maintenance, we were able to take a bus to the Buddha and the monestary. The views were fantastic from the Buddha, and the bus ride also provided great views. Later that day, we headed back into Kowloon to walk around the city and visit a few markets. Oddly enough, most of the markets listed were literally what the titled suggested. For example, the ‘Goldfish Market’ was selling Goldfish. We were rather concerned after we decided to visit the ‘Ladies Market’, however this broke the trend and was just selling clothes and jewelry . . . not ladies. I didn’t see anything I wanted to buy and neither did Matt. For dinner we at at some random Halal place in Kowloon which proved to be a fantastic find. There was a group of foodies apparently doing a review of the restaurant. The food was fantastic, although I have a feeling we were not only given the english menu, but also the english priced menu. Even so our entire bill was just over $12.

I never thought I would have to use my NW7 tag again (especially in the same year), guess I was wrong. Yep, I’m going to China for about two weeks! Sadly not via J class, although I’ll get to spend some time in a few first class hotels, I really loved my time at the Hyatt Regency Kyoto and want to try and repeat that experience. I’ll fly into Hong Kong, meet up with a friend, and continue throughout the country until I fly out of Beijing.

So what can you (all of two readers, if that) expect? Firstly, this time around I’ll be sure to bring a decent tripod, an accessory that I sorely missed while in Japan. So expect some great decent pictures. I’ll also try to get some more posts up this time around, I never got as many up as I wanted for Japan, mostly because I didn’t have the time after I returned. So be sure to check back near the end of August for some amazing trip reports! That is, provided the unstoppable swine flu "pandemic" doesn’t spread any further . . .

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.

Track of NW7 on January 1st 2009, Flight Aware also showed the pilot constantly changing his altitude to avoid turbulence. Flight path taken from Flight Stats.

I enjoy flying, and have been a loyal Northwest customer for quite some time and typically have not been disappointed with their international service (in flight mind you, their customer support is something else). In fact this past January, I was quite impressed with their new A330-300 AVOD, as well as the free drinks and newspapers on a flight to Amsterdam (NW42). I was even able to power my laptop with the provided power outlet the entire flight back. Some of my previous trips to Hawaii on their old DC-10 and 757′s were less then desirable, however for my upcoming trip I made sure to get a reservation on their more recent fleet of A330-200 aircraft.

When I previously posted about my flight reservation, I failed to get a WBC seat due despite my best efforts using my extra WorldPerks miles I’d accrued over the years. I tried talking with a representative, I even drove to the airport but to no avail. The seats appeared on nwa.com, however whenever I tried to complete my reservation I would get ambiguous error messages (error 180 and 105) and whoever I talked to simply refused to acknowledge those options existed. I finally gave up and made a coach reservation, just to be sure I had a flight lined up. Later, in early December, I decided to check back to see if it was possible to upgrade my seat. Amazingly, a spot opened on nwa.com and I was able to upgrade to WBC for the flight out. Ever since then I’ve been doing research on frequent flyer programs, and have decided to go with Delta Skymiles in the future. Eventually Northwest will be absorbed into Delta, so all the major routs I fly will be covered by them. Additionally, Delta’s business class will be upgraded soon with lie flat seats, and most of their international aircraft are equipped with power outlets even in coach class, with AVOD, as opposed to United or Continental. I just hope Northwest’s customer support is either improved or replaced with new direction from Delta.

Although NW7 has had an elevated level of delays recently, hopefully when my flight rolls around things will be going smoothly enough so as not to cause any issues, perhaps I’ll even be able to post a trip report. As of January 7th, NW7 holds a pathetic .2 out of 5 rating for timeliness.