With customer service as a key initiative, Northwest Airlines and Kinetics announced today a strategic partnership that will focus on expanding the development and adoption of a broad range of self-service technologies.

As a long-term supplier to Northwest, Kinetics has been the key supplier of Northwest Airlines E-Service Centers, which will process four million customers this year. Northwest, a leader in self-service check-in technology, will have E-Service Centers in 35 cities nationwide by June. During that same time, the airline will more than double the total number of machines - from 114 to 240.

“Customers who use the E-Service Centers say they’re as easy and convenient as an ATM machine and they value the ability to self-check for their flights,” said Al Lenza, Northwest vice president of distribution planning.

Building on the success of the E-Service Centers, Northwest and Kinetics have extended their innovation to include Internet Check-in or nwa.com Check-in and E-Service Recovery - a collection of services that allow passengers to check-in and print boarding passes on their own printers and rebook themselves electronically when flights are delayed or cancelled. In addition, the E-Service Centers will advise customers of flight cancellations, offer alternate flight arrangements, make reservations and issue boarding passes for new flights selected by the customer. Customers who qualify will also receive a voucher from the E-Service Centers for Service Recovery packets; the packets include a phone calling card, amenity coupon and a dollars-off certificate to be used on future flights.

Kinetics, Inc. is focused on inventing technology and building solutions that bring consumers closer to the services they have to perform. With a single point of contact, Kinetics brings together innovative hardware, multi-media, n-tier distributed systems, and professional services into focused and highly successful solutions. Kinetics’ family of products provides several of the key applications and services that are enabling airlines to embrace the “Age of Consumer,” increasing revenue and customer service while lowering costs. As the dominant provider of self-service terminals for airline services, Kinetics self-service technology is currently in use by six of the top 10 airlines in the world, with more than 10 million passengers checking in on Kinetics technology during 2000. More information available at www.kinetics.com.

Northwest Airlines is the world’s fourth largest airline offering more than 1,700 daily departures with hubs at Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, Tokyo and Amsterdam. With its travel partners, Northwest serves more than 750 cities in more than 120 countries on 6 continents. Northwest and partner KLM Royal Dutch Airlines received Air Transport World’s prestigious 1997 “Airline of the Year” award and, based on statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Northwest was the most on-time U.S. airline among the seven largest network carriers for the period 1990-1999. Northwest is the 2000 recipient of Air Transport World Airline Technology Management Award. Northwest’s WorldPerks frequent flyer program is the highest rated U.S.-based program reviewed by InsideFlyer Magazine, the leading authority on airline free travel programs, and in 1999 was named the most preferred frequent flyer program by the readers of Time in Asia. WorldPerks received the special “Industry Impact Award” during InsideFlyer’s 12th Annual Freddie Awards. In 1999, Northwest’s nwa.com was chosen as best airline web site by zdNews.com and Business 2.0 and was named one of the top 500 sites by Internet World magazine.

——-