I Still Love Southwest

Well, we made it to Michigan about a week ago -- one day later than expected. Thank You, yet again, Northwest Airlines. Our flight left Vegas late and we pulled in to Memphis to connect to our flight to Grand Rapids, MI, about 20 minutes late. After running from one end of an extremely crowded airport to another, we arrived at our gate to find the door closed and the plane taking off. Ok, inconvenient, but book us on a later flight. Turned out there weren't any until the NEXT DAY. Yes, they put us up in a hotel and fed us. But I am 5 months pregnant traveling with a toddler. I just want to get to my destination.

Here is my rub: every single airport in the U.S. is assigned a "legal connection time". Airlines can only sell connecting flights with this connection time. When I booked the flight to Michigan and saw a 40 minute connection in Memphis, I wasn't worried because I know the rule -- Memphis must have a 40 minute legal connection time. Yet every agent I spoke to told me that 40 minutes wasn't near enough time to connect. I should never have been sold that ticket. I feel that Northwest owes me more than an inconvenient hotel stay. The laws say they don't have to give me anything -- they just have to get me to my destination. Nice, huh?

In addition to that fiasco, I found the NW crews to be unhelpful and rude. When we traveled Southwest in June, the crew went out of their way to help us with the kids -- checking all the time to see if we needed anything. Southwest offered drinks with tops and straws for the kids. Northwest didn't have them (I asked). The Southwest crew offered drinks at least three times during a 4 hour flight. The Northwest crew offered them once and water once. Snacks on Southwest are free, but start at $3 for a bag of M&Ms on Northwest.

Unfortunately, Southwest only flies in to Detroit -- 4 hours from my parents and it is not direct so we rarely fly them here. But after last week's terrible flight, I'd rather spend an extra few hours in the car than deal with Northwest's incapability to treat customers well.

Videos from the past week can be found on my sister's blog -- I'm still trying to recuperate from the trip!