Skip to main content

Southwest Airlines Community

Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

lyscas164
Explorer C

I just spent over 1 hour waiting for a customer service rep to answer a phone after the automated response said the wait time was about 8 minutes. I usually give double the time predicted by any automated system. Once I had committed to the call after 30 minutes, I did get an answer 1 hour and 3 minutes later for what was a 8 minute wait, Southwest may have a time disability. 

My concern was about having 100% of all Southwest staff vaccinated. I finally found out, from Sophia, that SW would not have that mandate any time soon. After seeing the news that United Airlines had 100% vaccine requirement or termination, I decide to book with them. The news also reported that American Airlines, Jet Blue Airlines, and Alaska Airlines also determined that safety ranked higher than money. My wife and I have flown Southwest for about 10 years, we have lots of points to travel. Southwest says that points never expire, so when 2025 zips around we may check back with Southwest to see if safety comes before cash. By that time we will already have a routine established with another airline. I have a pHD in Pharmacy, I have watched too many people suffocate to death in my hospital. It is like watching someone drown in front of you and nothing that you can do to save them. A true nightmarish experience to see. Some of my colleagues leave the room, because after you see 10-20-50-100, previously healthy, people die unnecessarily, it becomes unbearable. And knowing they were just misinformed or conspiracy informed normal friends or neighbors, now dead, makes their death so much more unbearable. Southwest should open their eyes and see that mandates work for both, the airlines, and the staff and customers. Bye for now Southwest, get your act together.

19 REPLIES 19

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

mariabl123
Explorer C

I agree. Stop reading social media and listen to some properly educated professionals. It is sad that Texas residents listens to politicians to diagnose medical issues, you will never be able to educate them or have them comment on really common sense issues, like don't walk out in front of an active shooter, they just don't get it. The active shooter in this case is a killer virus that has taken more than 700,000 lives so far, but they keep walking out in front of the shooter without a bullet proof vest. Ask any police officer about how the vest saves their life. They put it on everyday, just in case. Get vaccinated please.

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

dfwskier
Aviator A

Passengers outnumber flight attendants by up to 43 to 1. Some significant number of those passengers will be unvaccinated.

 

Yet you are more concerned about 3 to 4 flight attendants than the 143 - 175 passengers that can be on a plane.

 

Please explain your logic.

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

jksobonya
Aviator A

IMO, this is a hot topic and everyone is going to have an opinion about it. As for me personally, I don't think mandating this particular vaccine at a company level is going to solve anything in regards to stopping the spread since vaccinated people can still get and spread the virus just like unvaccinated people can, albeit the "symptoms" for a vaccinated person will be "less severe" - but what people fail to realize is that for most, symptoms have been "less severe" from the very beginning. People now attribute less severe symptoms to being vaccinated, but 1 in 5 people who caught COVID in 2020 pre-vax had no symptoms at all (that's 20% of *all* people who got the virus) and the vast majority of the remaining have had mild to moderate symptoms. As I predicted, COVID is turning out to be more and more like the flu and it should be treated as such. We don't mandate flu vaccines, but many companies recommend getting one each winter season and they can be obtained for free through many healthcare providers with insurance. COVID should be the same. It shouldn't be mandated, but it can be recommended and those who feel they need it can get it. And we move on with life. 

 

--Jessica

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

Goforwand1
Adventurer B

@jksobonya jksobonya

 

"As I predicted, COVID is turning out to be more and more like the flu and it should be treated as such"    Seriously??? Are you an Epidemiologist?

 

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-...

 

"The COVID-19 situation continues to change, sometimes rapidly. Doctors and scientists are working to estimate the mortality rate of COVID-19. At present, it is thought to be substantially higher (possibly 10 times or more) than that of most strains of the flu."

 

 

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

jksobonya
Aviator A

lol I love the "are you a epidemiologist" responses - all that says is that you don't want to acknowledge the truth, so you try to be insulting instead. Not going to work with me. There is not a chance that COVID is "10 times" worse than the flu. These kinds of estimates from "experts" have been wrong since March 2020. The mere fact that COVID has "strains" makes it similar to common cold and flu viruses. There are many types of coronaviruses out there - COVID-19 is not the first, they are all in the same family and produce similar symptoms. For many, the flu is actually worse than COVID, and that's a fact. The "severe" reactions to COVID have been overblown and sensationalized by the media to make you afraid - that's one reason this has gone on for as long as it has. If we didn't have the internet and instant news, this would have been over in the late spring of 2020. But here we are ... 

 

Back to the point, flying has always been safe, I have flown many times since March 2020 and have been fine. We don't need this vaccine to be mandated to fly with Southwest. 

 

--Jessica

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

bwallet
Frequent Flyer A

@jksobonya 700,000 people have died of COVID in less than 2 years. Seeing the flags on the Mall reminded me of the AIDS quilt (I saw that on the Mall many years ago) so I looked it up. Approximately the same number of people have died of COVID in the US in less than 2 years as have died from HIV/AIDS in the past 40 years. Oh, an somewhere between 12k and 60k people die of the flu every year. Follow the alligator 350k > 60k. That's 5x worse than the worst flu and 10x worse than what one might think of as a typical flu year.

 

Oh, and I'm not an epidemiologist, but my job title is "Computational Geostatistician".

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

jksobonya
Aviator A

@bwallet wrote:

@jksobonya 700,000 people have died of COVID in less than 2 years. Seeing the flags on the Mall reminded me of the AIDS quilt (I saw that on the Mall many years ago) so I looked it up. Approximately the same number of people have died of COVID in the US in less than 2 years as have died from HIV/AIDS in the past 40 years. Oh, an somewhere between 12k and 60k people die of the flu every year. Follow the alligator 350k > 60k. That's 5x worse than the worst flu and 10x worse than what one might think of as a typical flu year.

 

Oh, and I'm not an epidemiologist, but my job title is "Computational Geostatistician".


I've said this before, but I don't trust the COVID numbers one bit. Never have. People may have died "with" COVID, but very few I'd argue have died "of" it. The vast majority of people who have passed "with" COVID are in one of 2 categories: 1) elderly 75+ or 2) obese. Maybe if we did something proactive to combat obesity and promote exercise and healthy eating, we would see a decrease in not only COVID deaths, but deaths overall. 

 

Obesity is the real pandemic - not COVID, in my view. 

 

--Jessica

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

twright
Explorer C

I have flown SWA since 1991 for business and pleasure it has always been my airline of choice.  I am not an "anti-vaxer".  However, I am anti vaccine mandate.  It simply makes no sense.  If your vaccinated you can get and spread the virus.  If you are not vaccinated you can get and spread the virus.  As such, you are not putting any other person at a greater risk whether you are vaccinated or not.  This is a personal medical decision that should be made between individuals and their own health care providers.  I hope SWA monitors these discussions.  I have nearly 1 million points, and fly almost weekly.  I will not fly SWA or any other airline that mandates vaccines.  

Re: Southwest must mandate vaccines before I fly them again.

bwallet
Frequent Flyer A

@twright That's not sound statistically. I can die in a car accident whether or not I wear a seatbelt. I still wear a seatbelt because the probability that I die is greatly reduced. You can get and spread COVID whether or not you are vaccinated, but the probability is considerably lower if you are vaccinated.

 

risk = loss * pr(loss)

 

Reducing pr(loss), even if you do not reduce it to zero, reduces risk. It is basic math.