Northwest Airlines - cheers for giving me a good price, jeers for not informing me that they changed my itinerary. I purchased my e-ticket months ago, and NWA clearly states that flight confirmation is unnecessary. Less than a week to my departure, and being a paranoid sort of fellow, I go online and discover that NWA had changed both my flight and departure time. What the heck!?! Okay, no biggie, it just would have meant I had to unexpectedly spend more time at the airport - I wouldn't have missed my flight, this time.
A few years ago, I had a ticket with a different airline. Less than 24-h to departure, as the airline recommended, I phone to confirm my seat and to my horror discover that my flight was cancelled, and that they changed my ticket to a flight leaving four hours earlier.
Ignoring the hassle and stress of trying to get to the airport at the dead of night, what really upsets me is that in neither case did the airline feel it necessary to inform me of changes to my itinerary. How difficult could it be to send an automated e-mail to customers when changes are made?
Sure, you should always confirm your flight, but I purchased a service, and I think it's only common courtesy that the service provider take the initiative to inform a customer when that service is altered as soon as reasonably possible. You don't wait for the customer to find out all on his own, if ever.
Oh yeah, and why is a round-trip ticket cheaper than a one-way ticket? This can only contribute to over-booking: airlines must realize that passengers only traveling one-way buy round-trip tickets to save money - so airlines/agents book excess passengers to fill up the seats. Only, they have no idea exactly how many no-shows there will be... hence, over-booking.
2 comments:
Did you tell Northwest about this lack of notification?
No, I didn't. I guess I should at least send them an e-mail/feedback.
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