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Northwest Gives Personal Data to NASA

Posted by michael on from the lie-in-the-sky dept.

Tree writes "Following four months on the heels of JetBlue's confession that they released passenger data to the Feds against their stated privacy guidelines, the Washington Post is reporting that Northwest has now admitted that they've done the same thing during a time period when they said they weren't. Nice. They were once my favorite airline."

3 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. How about a database of privacy violaters? by Genghis9 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Somewhat akin to that project at MIT (Government Information Awareness) detailing public figures, there should be one for public companies noting when, where, what.

    Then it should be easy to boycott and avoid them.

  2. With codesharing it's hard to avoid the bad ones by wike · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had a flight last week on Delta (not my favorite airline either) but when I showed up to the airport and had problems with Delta's (we don't want to talk to you so we make you deal with a machine) self-check in kiosk I found out that I was actually flying on Northwest. Huh? Apparantly even though I booked Delta, they codeshare with Northwest. I wonder if my passenger information is now in Northwest's database.

  3. Re:Northworst? by ari_j · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At least you have options. I lived in North Dakota for 21 years, and Northworst essentially has a monopoly there. I had to drive 2 hours to get on a damn DC-9 to Minneapolis (another of NWA's hubs, along with Detroit and Memphis) and take a transfer from there. While in college, I was prone to drive the 4 1/2 hours to Minneapolis and fly Frontier or Sun Country from there.

    That said, I flew a Northworst/KLM combination flight to Athens and back. KLM is no comparison to Northworst - wonderful service; attractive, friendly stewardesses; better seats; and more. If you have to spend 2 hours on Northworst to get 10 hours on KLM, do it.

    But for domestic flights that go over or near Denver en route, I now prefer Frontier. Especially with their revamped fleet of Airbuses. I recently flew with them on a plane that had only been in service for 2 weeks since it was brand new, replete with DirecTV in every seat-back. (I didn't pay the $5 because I had a book, but I watched the moving map a lot.) A little more expensive than other 'budget' airlines, but worth it in terms of service and comfort.