Northwest Airlines: A Communications Nightmare

Mone/AP

Northwest Airlines has had problems with its pilots, flight attendants and medieval company policies for some time now. Can you imagine trying to handle corporate communications/PR for such an outfit?!

Most recently, two Northwest Airlines pilots at the controls of an Airbus full of passengers overshot their destination by 150 miles before returning to land in Minneapolis. Maybe the pilots were asleep or debating company politics or simply had Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen turned up too high on their iPods but the dopey duo ignored urgent radio calls, cell calls, faxes and text messages from ground controllers for more than an hour while cruising over their destination at 37,000 feet. They have yet to tell the truth about what happened … which is even more troubling.

Over the last decade, Northwest has had multiple incidents of pilot intoxication, flight attendants bullying passengers and passengers being held hostage inside cramped airplane cabins for hours during delays, denied food and drink.

Hearing about the latest scandal of the pilots who forgot to land the plane, I couldn’t help but recall when I was approached by the airline about a decade ago to head their corporate communications. My impression was that top management was self-absorbed, arrogant and really didn’t give a damn for passengers, airline employees or the image of the company. It was my opinion they were only focused on profits to fluff up their own personal wealth. I declined the opportunity to work in what I thought was such an ethically corrupt management environment.

What Northwest Airlines should have done the day after this latest incident was to sack both of the pilots and serve notice that it won’t tolerate such conduct. But, the airline has not acted. Quite the contrary, it’s predictably gone underground, saying nothing … doing nothing. Not much has changed, I guess, over the last 10 years.