I started there in 1988 and Northwest had the best maintenance in the world then. They had the oldest average age of a fleet of aircraft in the world, yet we had average wise the #1 on-time airline in the world. We even gave Northwest 5 years in a row of #1 on-time in the mid 90’s.
All of that with the oldest fleet.
Pratt and Whitney, engine manufacturer, even came to MSP’s power plant shop to find out why we were getting 10,000 hrs off of our rebuilt engines and they couldn't.
Vendors were the ones that told us that the radio shop was the best in the world. We would feed back to new vendors about 90% of all schematic corrections on new equipment.
I retired with life-time flying benefits and now I don't even use them because, even though NW is now part of Delta, I don't trust their maintenance....just so you know.
If I do fly them, I will be checking what type of aircraft is used on my particular flight.
The Airbuses thought are another entirely different animal in the air....aircraft design minimums from nose to tail....fly them if you dare.
Can't justify NW now....and won't.
This is what happens when business people that don't know aviation buy a company......it loses altitude fast.
I'd love to hear more about your experiences and observations regarding Airbus aircraft.
For example (and IIRC) the A380 has/had some weaknesses in the wing spar strength, tail strength, and switched to aluminum wiring (vs copper) in order to save weight. (Any one of these is sufficient to put me on a competitive airline flying a Boeing.)
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