What union or FAA rules hurt the recovery. 14-16 hour duty days and 10 hours off isn't exactly hard to work around.
Same story as Boeing, but Boeing doesn’t have an engineer anywhere near the top of the ladder.Here comes the accountant bashing...
Son and wife travelled from LAX to BWI on Spirit yesterday. Other than being an hour late departing, no issues. We have used Southwest quite a few times since they started serving our local
A good accountant will be out on the front lines, too. Can I run the show from my home office? Sure. However, what you learn by walking through a manufacturing plant a few times a week isn't able to be observed from behind a computer monitor. Merging how you think it works with how it works on the production floor is a key part of this SWA failure. If you see how much of a risk is involved with the software when a minor weather system rolls through, it generally puts the fire under your tail to make sure it won't be a risk in the future.Here comes the accountant bashing...
Preaching to the choir, brother.
Luckily in my professional career, I have been a part of companies who encouraged travel to the various sites which I was overseeing even though the "accounting work" was able to be done from my office. I traveled about 2 weeks per quarter for 10+ years visiting sites on a rotating schedule. A half dozen sites in TX, a few in OK, LA, PA, ND, WY, CO, Alberta Province, CN, Dubai, etc and nearly every visit resulted a conversation that no one would email or phone me about, but they were eager to ask once I walked through the plant doors.
One of the seldom mentioned problems with our new COVID-induced work-from-home culture, too.
Or railroads with PSR.
Well, that's me... most of the time. I do favor one airline now, but Continental taught me years ago that customer loyalty is utterly meaningless in the long run anyway. I've looked at Southwest many times and have almost never found them to be even close to cheapest. They advertise cheap fares, but by the time you get to the end of the process they're generally more expensive than, say, American or Delta. In fact, out of curiosity I compared SWA's price for the flight I just booked yesterday - OMA/LGA, round trip, over 2 weeks out. It's about the same as I'm paying on another carrier, except now I get to pick my seat and don't have to worry about beating everyone else to the gate so I'm not stuck in the middle seat next to the aft lav. Plus, you know, I'm pretty sure my flight will actually happen...
That has been my experience on every commercial flight I’ve taken since about January 2008, when I last flew British Airways from London to Dar Es Salaam, TZ.
It's been a long time since a SWA flight was the best way for me to get anywhere, so I haven't flown them in quite a while. How do they do it now?
You can Check In online 24 hours ahead of ETD. That'll usually get you in A group, maybe high in B. But don't wait to long, ya gotta be quick at the stroke of 24 hours before ETD. There's also Pre Check or something like that. For $15 I think it is now you can do it before the 24 hour thing so you don't have to worry about being online and ready to go at the stroke of 24 hours before.
I disagree. If you have an A boarding slot - but don't show up until C is boarding - you are now C class and your A slot is meaningless.
No. The airplanes flown by (the original) Braniff are obsolete today, but they were mainstream when Braniff flew them. B707, B727, & B747 at the time of the oil embargo.
I think the advantage of SWA's pricing, for many consumers, is that it is relatively simple and understandable. It's often not the cheapest, but you don't know that unless you go to other websites to price other airlines. Sometimes they are cheaper, but you certainly can't count on it. Often they are not.
The appeal of every OTHER airline is, for me, the ability to get ALL the prices from any number of websites (Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, Chase, and on and on) to let me pick the one I want. Then if I want to check SWA it's a separate website and a new search. This duplication of effort never seems to yield more than a single-digit dollar amount of difference in price, so I generally don't bother. I do like the free checked bag, but to me it's not worth the extra boarding dance. I may not get great seats on some other airline, since they now charge extra for half the seats on any given flight -- but at least I know where I'm sitting, and I'm sitting there whether I show up early or show up late.
Decades
You can cancel up to the time the plane leaves, and all of their fares are either refundable or reusable. I did once know I was going to miss a flight on American, and they let me cancel and go standby later in the day. I wound up having to go into EWR instead of PHL, and the nice agent declined to charge me a change fee. But that was luck of the draw.
On most airlines, if you're not on board at the end of regular boarding, your seat may go to a standby. If that happens, even if you get on board, you won't get your seat back. But I believe Russ was referring to the old SWA system where you got a card with your boarding number upon checking in at the gate.
I thought United had reserved seating. You get your seat assignment when you book. But whadda I know, last time I flew United was about 4 years ago.
