Northwest Airlines adds $15 checked bag fee
Northwest Airlines has joined the parade of carriers that will charge for checked baggage.
The airline, which has hubs in Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, Tokyo and Amsterdam, announced the $15 charge today. It takes effect for any tickets purchased starting Thursday, July 10, and applies to travel that begins Aug. 28 and thereafter.
Northwest also will begin charging for frequent-flier tickets: $25 for domestic tickets, $50 for trans-Atlantic and $100 for trans-Pacific flights. The airline also plans to cut 2,500 jobs.
Northwest joins American and United airlines and US Airways in imposing the fee.
Northwest President Doug Steenland, in a media statement, cited energy costs as the reason for the fee, calling the fuel issue “unprecedented.”
The airline also will increase its ticket change fee from $100 to $150.
—Catharine Hamm, Times travel editor
[Photo: In April, Northwest Airlines skycap Lori Barnett checks in a passenger in Minneapolis. Jim Mone / Associated Press]
4 Comments on “Northwest Airlines adds $15 checked bag fee”
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July 9th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Northwest Airlines has been responsible for several of my most miserable flights. An hour and a half layover on the way to New Orleans turned into more than ten hours overnight sleeping at a gate. A cross-country flight through the hub in Minneapolis/St Paul with so little leg room that my feet kept falling asleep.
I felt years ago that NWA acted like an airline on the way out. $150 change fees, $15 checked bag fees, fees for frequent-flier tickets - these measures leave me more convinced than ever.
July 9th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’ve flown Northwest roughly thirty times since the late eighties. Their quality is sporadic- sometimes it’s actually very good, other times awful. Their terminal at LAX is a bit dingy.
Sad to see another American airline start to circle the drain, but what do you expect when our lunatic left won’t allow us to create energy domestically?
We now have Barney Frank in charge of our nuclear production facilities now- a true triumph of Democratic idiocy. He’s the same guy that didn’t know his gay lover was running a whorehouse in his own basement… No doubt he’ll be a grand success in his new role in high technology.
Since 9/11 travel has just become a pain in the behind, with an average of 100,000 less flyers everyday in in the US. The TSA shakedown routine ensures every flight starts off miserably with their refusal to profile. Have they ever caught grandma in her walker with a shoebomb?
Isn’t it time we just accept reality and get on with it?
July 9th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
NWA is one more money grubbering airline,they treat the flying public like so much cattle,to be nickel and dimed to death.It will serve them and all of the other airline if they all go bankrupt.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Ah, yes. How convenient it is to blame environmentalists, liberals, and Democrats for the current oil crisis. Tell me, Mr/Mrs/Ms anonyomous, if the Republicans had control of Congress with a President that has ties to the Saudi’s, why weren’t energy reforms undertaken? If anyone should get skewered over gas prices, it’s GW Bush. After all, didn’t he tell all of us years ago that he would stand up to OPEC?