Archive for the 'Southwest Airlines' Category
July 08 2008
You can stop wondering whether Southwest will fly to Canada (ok, you probably weren’t wondering that): The airline announced an agreement with Canadian low-cost juggernaut WestJet to codeshare on cross-border flights beginning in late 2009 (remember when you read about this later today - this won’t start for another year and a half). This will be a boon to passengers of both airlines, who will see Southwest finally offer international flying (yes, I know ATA flew to Mexico), and see WestJet’s passengers flying to a slew more cities on Southwest. Nice to see an airline win-win in this era of misery.
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March 13 2008
I’ve mentioned before that with some frequency people ask me about whether various airlines that they’ll be flying are safe. Sometimes these are obscure airlines in other countries, sometimes these are smaller airlines here. My answer is always the same: nearly all airlines are safe, though Nigeria and Indonesia have a rather poor record. Even given those countries’ track records, you are far, far better off flying between Lagos and Abuja than driving that same route.
Interesting, then, that in the past week we’ve had two airlines around the world run into safety issues. Adam Air in Indonesia (see note above) and Southwest. I bring this up for two reasons:
– You basically have no way of knowing how the airplane you are about to fly on has been maintained. Except for the two countries listed above (and, one could argue, any of the so-called Category 2 countries listed here) , we’re taking it for granted that oversight is strong. Except in the case of Southwest, we were duped.
– Even an airline with a comparably terrible safety record (China Airlines in the late 1990s, any of the now-shut-down Nigerian airlines), you are still much safer than you are in a car. People weigh their risks in a strange way and because they feel they have control in a car, they feel the risks are less. They couldn’t be more wrong.
I’m glad to see that mainstream media outlets have not blown the Southwest thing out of proportion. It is, obviously, perfectly safe to fly them, as it is perfectly safe to fly any airline in the US. You’ll likely see some local news stories asking the safety question. They are ridiculous. Southwest will face some public backlash for 3 days, and that will be the last of it. On time arrival should be your only concern when you fly, not the safety record of the airline.
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February 27 2008
A follow-up from yesterday’s story from the passengers on the Southwest flight who said they were discriminated against because they were too pretty…
Southwest put out a great press release saying that they weren’t picked up by the FBI for being too pretty, they were picked up for harassing a passenger who took too long for their liking in the bathroom. They reportedly swore at and threatened the passenger and were causing a general ruckus.
They added, “we would have gone out of business a long time ago if we discriminated against beautiful women…” Gotta love Southwest.
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February 26 2008
Two University of South Florida students claim they were discriminated against on a Southwest flight from Tampa to LA because they were too attractive. First, they say that a flight attendant wouldn’t give them a bottle of water. Then they swore at another passenger who took too long in the bathroom. (No, I understand why that’s discrimination either). Then when they left the plane in LA, they were escorted off by armed officers and interviewed by the FBI.
Said the two passengers (in the quote of the year): “I think they were just discriminating against because we were young decent-looking girls. I mean, nobody else on the plane looked like us except us,” she said. “[The flight attendants] were like older ladies. We were younger. Who knows, they could have been just jealous of us because we were younger.”
Hahahahahahahaha. Unfortunately, the FBI released them.
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November 28 2007
(Thanks to reader Pierre for the heads up)
A Southwest Airlines pilot noticed a vibration coming from one of his 737’s engines on a November 17th flight from Dallas Love and decided to return to the airport. Upon landing he noticed a large-ish hole in the engine (see here for photo). Investigators are looking into the cause, but I’ll give Southwest props for sending a letter to every passenger explaining exactly what happened.
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November 19 2007
(Thanks to reader Luke for the info…)
Certainly you remember the Southwest Airlines passenger who was denied boarding because her outfit was too sexy (or slutty). You may then remember that she was so embarrassed by this incident that she went on every television show that would have her. Feeling that she was still embarrassed she has decided that the best way to deal with the humiliation would be to pose for Playboy. Which is what she’s done. Photos are online, and I trust that you’ll figure out a way to find them. I sure hope she isn’t embarrassed anymore. I’ll let you know when the sex tape she made with her ex-boyfriend is leaked.
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November 08 2007
Southwest announced some pretty major changes yesterday designed to attract more business travelers to the carrier. The major points:
A new "business select" fare will be added. For an additional $10-$30, you get to board first, receive double Rapid Rewards points (on flights longer than 750 miles; 1.25 points for flights less than 750 miles), fully refundable tickets, free same-day standby, and a drink.
In addition, anyone who has flown 16 round trips in a year will always be permitted to board in the first group.
On the back end, they’re roughly doubling the number of fares on each route, which they believe will get average fares a bit higher. But passengers will actually only be shown 3 fares (a low, middle and high) when they search online, rather than the far more confusing 8 that they used to see.
Does this sound like Southwest is creating an "elite" class like most other airlines? Sure does. Southwest has been a business-focused carrier for a while (despite their image as a laid back leisure airline). I think this will help grab some of that traffic that was going to the majors because frequent flyers hated the boarding process.
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October 29 2007
(Thanks to Upgrade Travel Better for this:)
You can read the original post for the details, but basically you can now convert 25,000 Continental OnePass miles (which is worth 1 r/t domestic flight on Continental) into 3 free flights on Southwest by converting the miles into Choice Hotel points (and then moving them around from there). You can also transfer the OnePass miles into American and a number of other airlines using the same technique. As I said, see the post for the details.
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October 08 2007
A Southwest Airlines employee was reprimanded after he asked a passenger to change his t-shirt because he thought it was offensive. A Southwest spokesperson said that the airline did not have a dress code, so the passenger should have been permitted to fly.
Oh, the shirt? It had a drawing of a fisherman on it with the words, "Master Baiter." Ugh. And to think…people used to wear fedoras and suits to fly…
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September 20 2007
For some reason there’s been lots of Southwest news lately:
The airline announced that it will keep its much-loved and much-hated open seating policy after tests showed that customers preferred (huh?) the open seating. They’re tweaking the current system a bit, further subdividing the boarding groups and giving you a specific number in line (ie, you’ll be given A37, and you’ll stand behind A36. 10 points for guessing who you stand in front of. Correct answer: woman with too-short miniskirt who is trying to milk every ounce of publicity she can. Wait, I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about boarding processes. Sorry.)
The new boarding will be introduced everywhere by early November.
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Southwest and WestJet Enter Into Codeshare Agreement