Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines

Some interesting photos. Some glaring examples of photos not there at all! Such as the Lockheed Orion a 200mph "speed demon" of the 1930's and L14 Super Electras. Oh, and especially the L-188C Electras. Not ONE photo! Something is wrong with that on MANY levels.The L-188's were a big part of the fleet at the beginning of the "turbine era" at NW. They were involved in two of the companies worst accidents and yet soldiered on right up to 1970.Very little "meat-on-the-bone about the first pure-jets the DC-8's and why NW ended up switching over to Boeing, however, at least there is a photo of a color postcard. Also the book was not too well "proofed". For instance, Pg. 166 shows a photo of folks seated in the first class section of one of the rare combination cargo/pax Boeing 707-320B Fan-Jets with the cargo divider clearly in place and the overhead pods for air/lights/oxygen. Yet the caption reads "Inside the cabin of one of NW's fleet of Lockheed 1049G Constellations"! A photo on page 145 shows a Boeing 707 parked at the gate in SEA. Seattle-Tacoma Airport emblazoned clearly on the facade of the terminal building. The caption under the photo reads "A NW airliner at Washington National Airport"!On the other hand, some rare photos such as the one I spied on page 149 that shows the ticket counter in the old "Quonset Hut" terminal at ATL. I believe that is possibly H.O. Lindberg at the counter posing as a pax.He was the head of sales at ATL for years and years. That is a DC-6B seating chart on the wall with the old seat stickers they used to pull off and stick onto your ticket-jacket showing your seat selection.I knew Don Nyrop personally and his secretary Marie Bloomquist. I took great umbrage at the comment on page 180 that Nyrop had "proved errant" with his order of the Boeing 2707 SST's.If anything, Nyrop was being responsible! Pan Am, NW's main competitor in the Pacific-Rim arena was a launch customer for the 2707's so NW HAD to remain abreast of the competiion! Also, Nyrop was the stockholders "main man". He was hired to get NW into the black and he did and kept it that way as long as he ran it. If the rank and file held a grudge against him for his fiscal conservatism, then so be it. He did the job he was brought in to do.IMO there was just as much left out of this book as not, so I don't think it was what I had expected. I had held out hope that at last there would be a definitive history of Northwest.

This is at least the fourth book-length history of the late (and to many, lamented) Northwest Airlines, the first one dating back to 1962. Thanks to modern color printing technology—and some editorial distance from the topic—this may be the best of the lot. For the previous books were largely puff pieces for (and seemingly by) the airline itself. And given Delta’s takeover, this volume can tell the entire story—from 1926 to 2010.Northwest was my first “real” airline. Growing up in the 1950s in then small Madison, Wisconsin, it was for years the only trunk airline serving Truax Field that was largely the preserve of regional carrier North Central’s DC-3s. The relatively few times I got out to the airfield—located on the far side of town from where I lived—I loved seeing the big four-engine DC-4 and DC-6 aircraft that connected Madison to either Milwaukee going east, or Twin Cities heading west. For years, I could only imagine all the places those airliners flew.El-Hai gets some of that early sense of wonder into his tale of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-based airline that began service in 1926. Melding good photos (including pictures of period ads, timetables, and onboard memorabilia), multiple sidebar features, and a readable text, he relates the story of Northwest from both the behind-the-scenes and passenger points of view.The approach is chronological, with two chapters of pre-war history, two on its roles during World War II and Korea, and five on the carrier’s golden age of service from the 1950s to the 1970s, and its slow demise and takeover. Importantly, El-Hai covers the down side of any airline’s development—management fights, crashes, wrong-headed airliner acquisition decisions (e.g. the Martin 202), and other missteps. These are generally lacking in those previous books.

Thought it may be oriented towards NW pilots, but not bad, overall.

when i ordered the book there was in the ad stuff indicating that there was something about lee koepke in the book he had worked for northwesthe also restored the lockheed 10 electra i flew around the world on the earhart trail in 1967 found howland island and dropped a wreath in memory of amelia earhart and her navigator fred noonan and then returned to california having completed the flight for amelia as best we could given all the condiitons political and other wise in 1967i looked through the book and found NOTHING about lee keopke ann

This is a so-so book on the history of Northwest Airlines. Some of the captions of photos in the book are completely wrong. Quite a few stock photos were utilized. They have been published many times previously. The text skips around and is not chronological. Not much is written about the final years of Northwest Airlines with its merger with Republic Airlines. The best historical book on Northwest Airlines has yet to be written.This is not the one.

Jack El-Hai writes a comprehensive history of Northwest especially from inception up to demise - merging with Delta - and the cast of characters that ran it. It was a trailblazer in many areas and a seat-of-the-pants in others but beloved by most of the passengers that flew it through those early years. Was sorry he didn't include the story of my Christmas Tree in the lower deck of a Stratocruiser but those things would be frowned on today. For people in the areas that Northwest flew in - especially the Twin Cities - an excellent read.

Many of my friends work or have worked in this industry. Because Northwest Airlines was a very large contributor to Minnesota (and mine) History I find this book fascinating!

Written with paragraphs or sections of a chapter missing. You would be reading along, flip the page and it would be about something else.