Every other airline has experienced the same and NWA is by far the worst of the bunch.
I fly pretty frequently for work on Delta, NWA, United, TWA, and Frontier and it's been my experience that just about every airline is staffed with cranky employees these days. They're all stretched thin and trying to do more with fewer people, and paying those they do have less money.
In NWA’s “BC” era (Before Checci) the airline was known as an arrogant outfit but one that would get you there. Its airplanes were all paid for and their buyers actually negotiated for repair parts, fuel, airplanes, etc. Checci and his cohorts pulled money out of the company by leveraging big loans against the planes, routes and gates. A lot of senior employees made out big and the plan would have worked if they could keep the flights 85 percent filled. That didn’t happen. The rest is history.