Before our flight I had several problems with the airline changing our pre-assigned seats. This only seemed to affect the first LHR - MSP sector and appeared to be for no reason - and it wasn't minor changes but litterally scattering us across the aircraft individually as opposed to the nice neat block of 8 I had originally assigned. Still these things do happen! And with several moany groany calls to NW I got something semi acceptable in the end!
We were due to fly on Sunday 29th March and on the Thursday before I had an email from NW saying that due to a flight overbooking they were looking for volunteers to change their flights. I called the number and volunteered (they were offering 200 per person compensation in cash or 400 in vouchers)but they couldn't get 8 of us on any other route or time that weekend so left us where we were.
Check in online worked. Not fancy but it did the job.
On the Sunday we had a pleasant drive up to Heathrow and bag dropped - notcing signs saying the flight was overbooked and they were now offering 600 to anyone willing to amend their plans. We stuck with ours! My better half hates flying and had got himself in to the mode and didn't want to have to put it off for another 24 hours!
T4 at LHR = DUMP..... What a mess. It was however like a ghost town at lunchtime as we sat in weatherspoons.
I managed to pick a bent pair of sunglasses from Boots. Horrah! Didn't notice they were bend until half way over the pond...
My better half was most dissapointed that the Valium he had taken to calm his nerves had no effect [V]
On the flight i did feel like I was in a retirement village for knackered stewardesses. Virgin's staff are always so well turned out I wasn't prepared for the sloppy, scruffy, rude, abusive and generally obnoxious crew who seem to be employed by NW on these flights [}:)] - in fact i laughed as another passenger queried something about the green card/ESTA sitation and then was verbally attacked by the stewardess who looked and smelt like a 100 a day habit picked a fight with him and the passenger had to ask her to calm down.
Anyway, the gum chewing crew served a fairly nice meal and the pitch was good and the AVOD better than what VS offer.
There was a medical emergancy on board and the Nurse Practitioner in our group attended. She got 5000 ffps as a thank you (you need 25000 to get a oneway domestic flight)...
This being the last day the NW uniform was in use (they took the Delta uniform the next day) at the end of the fligh the cre offered to sell their uniforms to anyone who was interested. There wasn't much of a take up apart from someone who I think paid $10 for an apron - it might be on ebay now.
The transit through MSP worked smoothly and all but 2 of our 10 bags made it on to Orlando. The domestics were pretty much low cost but with a free drink and more gum chewing crew.
The flight home was pretty similar but with slightly better crew on a Delta branded aircraft with leather seats. I slept most of it so can't really comment on that. The Valium did seem to work better on the way home! [^]
All in all, a fairly amusing on time journey. I would fly NW/DL again if the price was right...
