6 posts tagged “minneapolis”
I think all concerned should pause and reflect on the events on NW flight188 a little bit. I think suspending the pilots' FAA license was premature. Yes - the incident was quite shocking though not completely unprecendented. No harm was done though alarm bells had gone off and there were red faces all around. Apparently Northwest allowed pilots to use laptops (like passengers can), though Delta does not. There was a stiff tailwind which got the airplane to the Minneapolis area a little earlier than usual. An unusual sequence of events led to pilots missing some of the earlier messages (stewardess came in and was talking to the first officer while the pilot went for a restroom break). Both pilots apparently had spotless records. It doesn't excuse their preoccupation with laptops and they do need to face disciplinary action. But, given the combination of events, I don't think ending their flying career is right - at least not yet. Can other forms of penalties not do? Just the negative publicity in the media is severe, if not sufficient, punishment. Do the FAA and Delta need to be seen taking extraordinarily stern action given how far things had gone - jets being scrambled, White House being informed etc.? The incident of a Delta flight landing on a taxiway in Atlanta seems more serious to me - but that somehow didn't get the same level of attention.
More specifically, thank you to the Delta agent who was manning gate D5 at Minneapolis airport on Sep 11, '09 at around 4.30 pm or so. Didn't get his name, unfortunately. As I said in my previous post, this is an account of Continental leaving me in the lurch while Delta came to my rescue. It was a somewhat bad weather day in New Jersey and Continental had cancelled the 6.25 pm flight to Newark - on which I was booked. The Continental call center and the airport agents basically said I'd need to come back next morning - and that they were only trying to accommodate passengers with connections onto Delta and other flights to the NYC area airports. I was in no mood to wait overnight, so I called Orbitz for business (our official travel facilitator) and got myself a one way ticket to La Guardia (LGA) on a Delta flight for over $600. I then noticed that the 4pm Delta flight to Newark had still not left and decided to try my luck on that one (becase Newark works better for me than LGA).
So I sauntered to gate D5 where the Delta agent heard me out and I casually also mentioned that I was from the cancelled Continental flight. He saw that there were a few seats on the Newark flight. Instead of just transferring me from the Delta LGA flight onto it, he called Continental on his own, verified my details and got them to transfer me onto the Delta flight. This meant that my new Delta ticket was redundant. He further reminded me that Delta/Northwest had a policy allowing cancellation of a ticket within 24 hours with no penalty. Sure enough, I was able to cancel the ticket with no trouble and travel to Newark on Delta on the Continental ticket. In essence, the Delta agent did for me what the Continental guys didn't. And he saved me (or, in this case, my company) $600 and the trouble of traveling home from LGA. Now that was customer service that made a difference.
To be fair, Continental has been reasonably reliable and they do a pretty good job of updating flight status, their online experience is good and, yes, they do serve meaningful (free) food on their flights. But I don't particularly like the tiny Embraer 145s that they operate on EWR-MSP (Delta flies bigger Embraer 190 or Airbus) and, on this occasion, Delta beat Continental on the ground as well.
It is not hard to come to the conclusion that flying domestic in the US is a pretty plain vanilla affair and there isn't much to choose from among the airlines. Yet, when you fly frequently, you begin to discern differences as the laws of probablity kick in and events such as cancellations, aircraft changes, bad weather etc. occur. I have been flying between New York (Mostly from Newark) to Minneapolis on work for the last 12 weeks or so. I mostly fly Continental but have taken a few flights on Northwest/Delta.
When I started, Continental was using Boeing 737s on the early morning (from EWR) and late evening (from MSP) flights but they then abruptly switched to the Embraer 145 - a much smaller aircraft. With 2-1 seating and a very tiny overhead bin, this aircraft invariably requires me to check in my cabin bag at the gate - and reclaim at the gate on arrival. This adds about 10 minutes before you can be on your way, which matters when you fly every week. It is also a single class configuration, so there's no question of upgrades. Being "Elite" doesn't confer any significant advantange on this type of aircraft.
A bigger issue is that Continental seems to cancel flights at the drop of a hat when there are weather induced delays at Newark. They often cancel the originating flight, which means the return flight from Minneapolis is cancelled too. It is infuriating to see Northwest/Delta flights take off (albeit with delays) to the 3 New York area airports while Continental seemingly refuses to even try. This has happened twice in the recent past (will write another post on this and how Delta rescued me when Continental abdicated). NWA uses an Embraer 190 on the sector - which is more comfortable, can accommodate larger cabin bags and has a two class configuration.
The good thing about Continental is they actually supply some meaningful food complimentary. Cereal on the morning flight and a snack box with cheese, crackers, chocolates etc. on the evening one.
So there it is - it isn't all plain vanilla. The "coffee, tea or me" days are long gone, but there is scope for differentiation still.
We were witness to an interesting ritual on Saturday evening on the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis - near the Mill Ruins park. It was the crossing of the ferries via the locks on the river. The locks are necessary to allow river traffic around the waterfalls. The stone arch bridge gives a good view of the locks on side and the I35 bridge on the other.
See the ferries entering the locks and then at the top with the locks filled up.
One doesn't often witness this in an urban setting. On the other side is the I35 bridge (which had gone down and was rebuilt).
It's nice and balmy weather in Minneapolis. As we were walking on the Mississippi riverfront, we noticed a strange contraption approaching us on 2nd St
It advertises itself as a pedalpub. I guess you work off your Michelob Ultra in 6 blocks. Have to say it is an innovative concept. But does it count as driving under the influence? Is there a designated driver as well? You'll find answers on their website.
Excuse the long 3-week hiatus - have been traveling a bit. Am in the twin cities on a project - traveling back and forth between the twin cities and NJ. For some reason, the Minneapolis airport has signs in Japanese and English. Why Japanese? This was especially odd because of the totally unconnected event of having my hair cut last weekend by a barber in NJ who was packing his bags for Tokyo! He was asking his colleague if BJs sold luggage and no one seemed to know. I remembered having bought a Samsonite at BJs and told him - which is when he told me why he needed the bags. Apparently he worked for a band that had traveled to Tokyo but he also cut hair to supplement the income. He figured that Americans and other English speaking non-Japanese were a sufficnelty large and underserved market in Tokyo - especially areas close to the American bases. He had done his homework - and knew, for instance, that Japan housed a sizeable Brazilian population - which he also intended to target.Very interesting as it all came back to me when I landed at MSP and saw those Japanese signs.
