While I’m not a Southwest customer, there’s no airline I have more respect for than them. They’re just customer friendly. Justified or not, customers love Southwest. There’s many things they do right, and then there’s some things they get credit for that I just can’t understand, like people uniformly claiming they have the lowest fares.

Anyway, they’re always known for being the customer friendly airline, so when they make a change that isn’t pro-customer, it’s shocking. And even though it’s not all that significant, it kind of is because it’s Southwest making the change.

What am I talking about? Starting August 1, they’re making huge changes to their “drink coupon” (coupons for free alcoholic beverages) policy. In the past they’ve accepted coupons regardless of when they expire, even years past their expiry date.

Well, they’re making three key changes. First, starting August 1, coupons past their expiration date will no longer be accepted. That’s fair enough, though less than a week advance notice isn’t very much lead time.

The second change they’re making is that coupons with an expiration date will now expire on August 31, 2011. So they’re adding an expiration date to something that doesn’t have an expiration date. Really? Gotta make sure those 50 cent minis don’t turn the company unprofitable, I guess.

The most foolish change of all, in my opinion, is that Business Select coupons will be valid for the day of travel only. As a Business Select customer you get two onboard “perks” — a free drink and early boarding. But let’s think about this for a second. The average passenger on a “Business Select” fare is probably leaving early in the morning, heading to the office for the day, and flying back a day or two later. They can’t really drink on the outbound flight if they’re headed to the office, but now they can’t even save that drink coupon and use it the next day on their return flight to get two drinks.

Southwest flyers in this FlyerTalk thread sure aren’t happy about the change. And while it’s not all that big of a deal, I don’t get why they’d make this change. Southwest is the no fees, no restrictions, no asterisks airline. This change is everything they don’t stand for, and it’s all for something so minor. Fine, don’t accept drink coupons that have expired, but add an expiration date to the ones that don’t have an expiration date and alienate your highest revenue customers? Not smart…

Dream big, guys. You can be a few credits closer to that dream trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Southwest is offering double Rapid Rewards for travel booked and completed between April 7 and May 26. Registration is required.

I’ve seen some people suggest that this means the legacies will start offering double elite qualifying miles promotions. Sorry, I think you’re crazy, folks.

Last week Southwest launched a promotion for Colorado residents, whereby those that sign up for a Rapid Rewards account get one free ticket for every roundtrip Business Select ticket they book to/from Denver by January 31 for travel through February 28.

United has sort of matched, although not surprisingly you need to be a lawyer to understand the terms and conditions. All the details can be found here and registration is required. Basically you get an electronic certificate good for a free ticket for every roundtrip economy ticket booked in “Q” class or above by February 14 with travel completed by March 5 (that’s right, if you actually pay for first class you don’t qualify). Only those with addresses in Colorado and travel originating in Aspen, Colorado Springs, Denver, Durango, Eagle, Hayden, Grand Junction, Gunnison and Montrose qualify. “L” class availability is required to redeem the free ticket, which can be tough to come by on some routes.

Through October 31, Southwest is offering one extra Southwest Rapid Rewards Credit for each one way trip. Only travel booked on or after September 17 will count (wonder if Southwest will learn from the legacies that this doesn’t work). Registration is required.

(Tip of the hat to Dan Webb)

Dan Webb made a brilliant post about the (surprising) Southwest bid for Frontier. I joined him last night (along with Flying with Fish) for a mini-podcast to share my thoughts, which were rather limited.

Spark Notes version: I don’t get it!

Some frequent travelers avoid Southwest because of their onboard humor, which I can understand to a certain extent, especially for those that fly 100+ segments a year. While the normal set of jokes can get old, I think this flight attendant rap is hilarious (and extremely well done):

Am I the only one that thought that was hilarious, at least the first time around? I love the businessman sitting in the front left that looks irritated at first, but is laughing by the end of the rap.

Even more interesting, though, is this flight attendant rap (possibly NSFW), which I found in the “related videos” section.

While I have a lot of respect for Southwest Airlines, I rarely write about them. That’s probably because I don’t usually fly them and their frequent flyer program doesn’t interest me all that much. Nonetheless, the management style and fantastic employees always impress me and make me kinda jealous (don’t worry, I quickly come to my senses when I realize there are no upgrades or longhaul international partner awards.

Anyway, I just *loved* this video. Southwest gave away a million dollars (post-tax, how awesome is that?) to employees, in chunks of $10,000. Apparently those that won $10,000 were randomly selected from a group of employees that got nominated for going above and beyond.

The quote in the video is all too true: “If we care for the employees, the employees are going to care for the customers.” Too bad many of the legacy CEO’s haven’t take note.

Thanks to Dan Webb for emailing this to me. Very well done by Southwest, in my opinion.

Pardon me for being somewhat cynical and perhaps rude, but I couldn’t help but laugh after seing this video. This lady, Wendy Slaughter (heh) got kicked off a flight because her kids were being unruly. She even says, “the children were a little out of control on the flight…” If a mother says that I can only imagine how it really was. This all sounds to me like a case of a lady that has zero control over her kids, something which is far too common and very sad when in public. Don’t get me wrong, I feel for the fact that her kids have “problems,” but that’s no excuse for letting them run wild.

This whole story seems to me like something out of Jerry Springer, from the names, to the sister, to the grandmother. Sorry, but if this is what’s being reported on the news I can only imagine what it must have been like to be on that flight.

Heh, and then we wonder why Southwest has the reputation among some for being the “kettle” airline.

Since I’ve had less time on the web than I expected the past several days, I went through all of the airline forums on FlyerTalk this morning and was pleased to see that nothing too major has happened. Here are some of the minor things I did note:

• Air Canada reported a first quarter loss of $288 million. It appears to not be all that bad since their operating loss was substantially less than the same period last year.
• American raised the cost for same-day standby to $35. They still have a better deal than UA, which seems to be what matters most since they usually match each other tit-for-tat.
• JetBlue announced they would delay their launch of LAX service. For the reasons named in the article this seems like a very wise decision. ‘Nuff said.
• Southwest has begun selling energy drinks on their flights. Energy drinks on an airplane? I’ve never had a Red Bull, am I missing out?