As of today, Northwest Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta. It is the end of a long and proud tradition here in the upper-midwest. I suppose it's always seemed like a stretch to some that a city like Minneapolis (a pretty parochial place and always a big small town in some peoples' minds) could also be a major airline hub.
In recent years, I have not always been a fan of Northwest, or its management (or should I say, at least at times, mis-management.)
And of course, let's all remember that it wasn't long ago that Northwest requested a bailout from our legislature, promising that they would never move their headquarters.
Still, I will miss them.
I took my first flights, as a young adult, on Northwest Airlines. Northwest was once called "Northwest Orient" because it offered flights to Japan. One member of our congregation worked for Northwest for many years, and often flew to Japan.
Good bye, Northwest.
9 comments:
As someone who flies Northwest a lot (one of very few airlines out of RAP), I'm sad also. Watch ticket prices skyrocket even more than they have.
It's hard to lose local icons like that. We in the Chicago area lost Marshall Fields a few years ago. (It's Macy's now.) That felt bad too.
This sure won't help the prices. In the business world, it seems that in the long run, mergers spell doom for a company, I wonder what will happen. Airline are made up of people and the airports serve people. I suppose we'll get less service.
I remember when PanAm was the airline of choice in the US. I always found it ironic that it collapsed exactly ten years before it was supposed to the flight to the moon - as shown in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey".
So many of the companies we saw in our youth are no longer with us. Woolworths, Gimbles, and several airlines. Although I do believe there is still a PanAm railway.
I used to fly Northwest frequently out of Monroe, LA where I live and worked before I retired. I thought this was an interesting merger since Northwest has had a large presence here at our regional airport and this is also the original home of Delta Airlines, which had it's beginnings out of a crop dusting service many years ago. Delta was headquartered here before it's move to Atlanta and continued to have it's Board of Director's meetings here until the founder passed away. I hope this will turn out to be a good thing for the airline and for all of us, the consumers.
I thought Delta was going bankrupt?? But now Delta owns Northwest? Money makes the world go around, makes us go around, the world go around.
I have logged a lot of flights on Northwest over the years! (We used to call it "Northworst" -- but we were jokin' because we liked it.)
I have had less than great experiences overall in general with Northwest, but still there is something to be mourned.
When I took my first trip to Asia in 1989, I flew Northwest and it was amazing. I used frequent flyer points accrued on what was then a partner airline.
I flew business class from NYC to Tokyo and then changed planes and flew to Hong Kong.
It was an amazing experience in every way and very good service at that time.
Deep sigh.
Ruth -- we too had a local department store icon -- Daytons -- which became Marshall Fields, and now Macys... so, I know how you guys feel, too.
And Fran and others, I know NWA hasn't been as good of late... but my sense is it's a victim of corporate greed: a couple of CEOs who really raided the company for themselves.
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