Well done Southwest Airlines

Captain said:
Sounds like a massive waste of time to me. Airlines don't sell transportation...they sell time. If it wasn't for time people would walk to where they were going. This captain was stealing from his pax in order to stoak his ego...IMO.
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Party pooper.

I bet the flight left on time and arrived early.
 
Busflyer said:
WRONG. no one is going to risk having the aircraft roll into ground equipment just to get the clock running. Brakes are released when everything and everyone one is secure and ground crew is also ready for brake release.

Besides that, our aircraft need doors closed, brakes released, AND aircraft movement sensed by the IRS's to send a block out time.
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WRONG. (see how dumb that looks?)

Just because you release the parking brake doesn't mean you release the brakes. There are these things called 'toe brakes'. You see, you hold the toe brakes (they're the ones on the rudder pedals) while you release the parking brake.

Why would you, obviously with no experience, feel the need to instruct me with your 'WRONG' attitude? Obviously you know not what you speak. I've been there. I've sat in thousands of jumpseats. You clearly have not.
 
Mason said:
Party pooper.

I bet the flight left on time and arrived early.
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That would be you guessing and not derived from the OP. I hope you're right...but the OP did not say that.
 
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Art VanDelay said:
Southwest is not paid by the hour but instead by the trip. They are about the only airline that does this. Southwest also has the highest labor cost of all current US airlines.
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Are you sure about that? I think they get block or better. What's your source?

Besides, it's not relevant. It does make it better for the Captain if he is not directly profiting from delaying the pax with the door shut. But delaying the pax is delaying the pax and is not cool in any case.
 
RotorAndWing said:
I try to at least go back and thank my passengers when we start disembarkation at the gate. If we are caught in a gate hold I make a PA and explain why we are delayed and reassure them we are working on getting underway ASAP and will do our best to make up time.

On occasion I have stepped in the back to answer passenger questions why we are waiting. Lots of passengers are already apprehensive about flying so putting a human touch to a situation is good PR, in my opinion.
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For differentiation, this, in my book, is cool. He is not delaying anyone. When there were ground delays I was the first on the PA in the cabin explaining face to face what was going on.

That is NOT what the OP said. He said the door shut the captain worked his way through the entire cabin shaking everyones hand. That, on it's face, is a waste of time. Period. I'm done defending the obvious.
 
jesse said:
I always always always fly southwest if they have a flight going where I need to go. I am also willing to pay more to fly on a southwest 737 over some regional crj.



I don't care about assigned seats and basically never take my headphones off while traveling. I want to get where I need to go without delay and if something goes wrong I want to be treated like a human. Southwest does the above very well.
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^^ This ^^


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Captain said:
Sounds like a massive waste of time to me. Airlines don't sell transportation...they sell time. If it wasn't for time people would walk to where they were going. This captain was stealing from his pax in order to stoak his ego...IMO.
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Airlines aren't selling time, they're selling transportation. Or, put another way, they better be selling something other than time, because they're all pretty much failures in the business of time.

The airlines operate a service business, as in customer service, and employees are selling the product every time they come in contact with a customer, even over the PA. The right attitude makes all the difference, and "sit down, shut up, we have to go" wouldn't be well-received even by the most time-sensitive passenger.

Southwest in particular has a history of placing a focus on on-time performance, and generally do it with a smile, even when events beyond their control cause things to go awry. I can't imagine any scenario in which a Southwest captain would unnecessarily delay departure, but there's a big difference between sitting behind a closed door stewing about the ground stop because you're going to be late, and going for the customer service win.


JKG
 
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It was once explained to me that SWA pilots are paid per trip, with each city pair being worth some number of trips. I think the main point is that they have an incentive to get going quickly; the pilots don't benefit from "starting the clock" and dawdling.

There are routine delays that affect airlines all the time....sometimes you get an airspace or airport flow delay of 10 minutes or more. Most airlines will close the door and push back and sit on a taxiway and wait. When I worked in a tower, sometimes aircraft would just ask to taxi slow. It sounds like that was a possibility here, but they handled it a little differently.
 
Captain said:
Sounds like a massive waste of time to me. Airlines don't sell transportation...they sell time. If it wasn't for time people would walk to where they were going. This captain was stealing from his pax in order to stoak his ego...IMO.
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Or maybe he had a small ground delay and used the time for PR instead of letting people stew in their own juices? Who knows.
 
Captain said:
Of course not. I am polite. But I'd be ticked if the story really went down the way depicted. Maybe that's why businesses don't fly SWA?
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The company I worked for used SWA a lot. They'd use any carrier that got their people where they needed to be at the best fare.
 
Captain said:
For differentiation, this, in my book, is cool. He is not delaying anyone. When there were ground delays I was the first on the PA in the cabin explaining face to face what was going on.

That is NOT what the OP said. He said the door shut the captain worked his way through the entire cabin shaking everyones hand. That, on it's face, is a waste of time. Period. I'm done defending the obvious.
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You're bringing a lot of negativity to this thread which was supposed to bring about a feeling that, "Hey, there's pilots out there doing great things to promote the industry." You've spent the duration of this thread defending yourself, talking down to people, and representing yourself very negatively. I'm sure you're a nice gentleman and a probably incredibly smart man, but it's just not filtering through to the keyboard. I think it'd be best if you just let it be the way it is before you talk down to others on here. Be the bigger man. The flight took off on time, and landed on time. Confirmed this morning via my Dad. Have a problem with it? Message me and I'll give you my phone number and we can talk it out.
 
austinglasair said:
You're bringing a lot of negativity to this thread which was supposed to bring about a feeling that, "Hey, there's pilots out there doing great things to promote the industry." You've spent the duration of this thread defending yourself, talking down to people, and representing yourself very negatively. I'm sure you're a nice gentleman and a probably incredibly smart man, but it's just not filtering through to the keyboard. I think it'd be best if you just let it be the way it is before you talk down to others on here. Be the bigger man. The flight took off on time, and landed on time. Confirmed this morning via my Dad. Have a problem with it? Message me and I'll give you my phone number and we can talk it out.
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Great story, I enjoyed it, thanks for posting, and thanks for the follow up, most of us know that a pilot would not do something like this if it were going to affect the flight schedule, that's just common sense.
 
LDJones said:
That only works as long as you don't run out of first-time customers. I've had two people in the last week comment on their Spirit experience and vowed they'll never fly them again.

Time will tell...
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So far time is telling us that Spirit is making piles of money. They just ordered 55 new planes. I've been on several Spirit flights, and they really do suck. They are also half the price of the nearest competitor on many routes.

So, it appears right now that the market is saying pax will put up with a lot of crap to save money.

For this thread, I think the airline is SELLING time, but giving away customer service. It didn't cost the captain or the airline anything tangible to walk down and shake hands with everyone. It's gotten some good press right here(minus one), and the airline is doing fine financially. But - they are being killed by Spirit in the profit area. However, I agree that flying Spirit is something that is going to be a one time shot for a certain demographic, but I believe we can all agree that in the past few decades, air transpo has become commoditized. The sinking of Pan Am was just the first of a long line of high service, high cost carriers to visit Ch 13, 11, or 7.
 
I don't recall if there was ever a flight I was on where as soon as the door closed we pushed back, so I fail to see how the captain was wasting passengers' time. Maybe someone is just ****ed off they didn't get hired by Southwest.
 
EdFred said:
I don't recall if there was ever a flight I was on where as soon as the door closed we pushed back, so I fail to see how the captain was wasting passengers' time. Maybe someone is just ****ed off they didn't get hired by Southwest.
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Bingo. And likely never will.
 
austinglasair said:
You're bringing a lot of negativity to this thread which was supposed to bring about a feeling that, "Hey, there's pilots out there doing great things to promote the industry." You've spent the duration of this thread defending yourself, talking down to people, and representing yourself very negatively. I'm sure you're a nice gentleman and a probably incredibly smart man, but it's just not filtering through to the keyboard. I think it'd be best if you just let it be the way it is before you talk down to others on here. Be the bigger man. The flight took off on time, and landed on time. Confirmed this morning via my Dad. Have a problem with it? Message me and I'll give you my phone number and we can talk it out.
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Well, it's your story so ill respect that. I didn't mean to dump a bunch of negativity on your feel good story, just meant to make an observation and then the pile up came and I felt I should defend the position. Maybe a mistake.

No, I'm not bothered enough to feel the need to 'talk it out'. For the record I too like SWA.

Had a short flight where the FAs on rotation dumped two baskets of snacks in the isle from their jumpseasts by the cockpit. With the steep deck angle they cascaded down and everyone grabbed what they wanted. Then they said on the PA, "here come the drinks!". Good stuff.
 
Captain said:
Well, it's your story so ill respect that. I didn't mean to dump a bunch of negativity on your feel good story, just meant to make an observation and then the pile up came and I felt I should defend the position. Maybe a mistake.

No, I'm not bothered enough to feel the need to 'talk it out'. For the record I too like SWA.

Had a short flight where the FAs on rotation dumped two baskets of snacks in the isle from their jumpseasts by the cockpit. With the steep deck angle they cascaded down and everyone grabbed what they wanted. Then they said on the PA, "here come the drinks!". Good stuff.
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Hey fair enough! Take care buddy. Blue skies!
 
Amazing. Someone does something RIGHT in days where service seems to be an afterthought and we got some folks here that want to condemn it. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I find it fascinating that anyone would find fault with above and beyond.

Some folks here know this - several years ago I was commuting between San Antonio and the DC area (IAD/DCA/BWI). I usually booked on either AA or DL because I had super-high-falutin'-frequent flyer status that usually resulted in upgrades. Or on Midwest, which at the time was the equivalent of first-class seating throughout. Monday out, Friday back. After a number of flight delays & weather issues in Dallas (that left me driving from DFW to SAT at midnight) or Atlanta (that left me stuck there until pretty much the next day), I started making backup reservations on the Southwest non-stop from BWI. A little less convenient time, but it got me home. If the big airline operated, I'd just refund the Southwest ticket (or leave it as credit). After about the 2nd or third time of taking Southwest, I just gave up on the majors and booked Southwest as primary. More legroom than coach on the others, never stuck in the back, and sometimes had no one in the middle seat. And it got me home reliably.

These days, corporate has a deal with AA, so that's preferred. And Southwest doesn't operate internationally, which is a drawback. Still, I will take Southwest when the circumstances are favorable.
 
Captain said:
WRONG. (see how dumb that looks?)

Just because you release the parking brake doesn't mean you release the brakes. There are these things called 'toe brakes'. You see, you hold the toe brakes (they're the ones on the rudder pedals) while you release the parking brake.

Why would you, obviously with no experience, feel the need to instruct me with your 'WRONG' attitude? Obviously you know not what you speak. I've been there. I've sat in thousands of jumpseats. You clearly have not.
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Well obviously " sitting in thousands of jumpseats " has provided you with more experience than spending thousands of hours in the left seat.

Now back to the point of the thread, more power to the Captain for going out of his way to provide a positive experience for his passengers.
 
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