Southwest Airlines Community

@Raphael - ELP is 3958 feet ASL and the Franklin Mountains top out at 7,100 feet ASL. It is less than four miles from the edge of the runway to the base of the mountain. So, as a flying passenger I appreciate the pilot making the left turn in an expedient manner. I understand the tighter turn radius bicycle analogy, but a plane can bank tighter and go faster to make the same turn. It is the (apparent?) throttling back of the engines that gives the pit of the stomach feeling. Maybe if we went faster and banked sharper it would be even worse. @Blog Boy - Leaving and departing ELP often involves flying into Mexican airspace. Since it is so common, I believe no permissions or overflight fees are needed. Just last night I flew in and we landed on runway 4/22 (I don't understand "L" and "R" - probably left and right, but from whose perspective?) while the plane was pointing northeast. I actually love this approach because it is so uncommon - I've probably only done it 6 or 7 times in my life, so it's maybe 2% of my landings in El Paso. To bad we were landing at night :-( If you look at an aerial photo (Google Earth, of course) of ELP, you can see that if wind requires you to land facing northeast on runway 4/22, you HAVE to fly over Mexico - no way can a commercial airliner make that tight left turn around the Franklins to land without overflying Mexico. @Everybody cheering for Fransisco and Leah - I will gladly donate any and all unused SWA drink coupons if SWA will place a bottle of good champagne on the flight they take together. Anybody else willing to join me? Jim in El Paso ... View more

Wow Kim, that is a shock. My apologies, sympathy, and prayers are with you and the Mrs. Seale. Anything anybody here can do to help? It is a very small world, maybe if you post a brief description of what you did (for the company who made a huge mistake by removing you) someone here might know of something. Jim ... View more

Captain Stark's postings are my favorites - I love the technical "stuff" about aircraft and flying in general. I am curious about the departure from ELP when the plane is pointing west. You mention the perception of slowing down on takeoff is just that - a perception. But when departing to the west from ELP, a hard left turn is required (good thing too, or the Franklin Mountains would result in an unscheduled termination of the flight) and not only does it seem we slow down while in that turn, but I can hear the engines slow down and feel the thrust being reduced. It is more pronounced if the flight is going to Dallas or other points east. Now, I understand increased thrust equals increased lift; and I understand banking results in less lift, therefore slowing down while banking means even less lift. This left turn after ELP departure is the ONLY time I ever have a slight queasy feeling when flying. When flying the departure I mention above does the plane really continue accelerating all the way? Or is there about 20 seconds where the speed is not increasing? (I don't think it decreases.) ... View more

Ah, I love that speech from Field Of Dreams - always gives me goosebumps. There is nothing better than an afternoon at the Ballpark in Arlington, watching the Rangers play. (yeah, technically it is Ameriquest Field, but . . .) And I remember Arlington Stadium too. Twice I watched Nolan Ryan start one game before his next start was a no-hitter. But one of those games I did get to watch him set a record - the most home runs he ever gave up in a single game - I don't remember the number, and Google isn't helping at the moment. Now you've got me wanting to go to a game. ... View more

Phil - I've been to SWAFreedomShop.com. Oh, who wrote that terrible HTML code? Try it in Firefox, the thumbnails are full size giants and you have to scroll left to right. Then try it in IE, look at an item and hit your "back" button. Whoops, the page is expired, go back the the main menu. Just an observation, it is an awful site to navigate around in. And they know it - on the top of each page it says, "Note: While in the catalog order pages, using the browser back key could produce undesired results" And of course, none of the stuff is as cool as James' great collection. What ever happened to all the plastic boarding passes? I'll bet they are in a closet somewhere. You guys should sell them for $2.00 with all proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House. I would buy a few. You could charge $3.00 if you want a particular number or color. Maybe $25.00 for one signed by Herb, Colleen and Gary? I'll give the Ronald McDonald house $100 for four signed plastic boarding passes - two with number 11 and two with number 26. Does anybody remember the ones in California that were die cut in the shape of the state of California? That was way back when. ... View more

My first thought was, "Captain, you've got to get a life." But then I started looking closer at all the cool "stuff" you have. A Colleen Bobblehead? I want one of those! And the dominoes - way too cool. And if I could get the SWA basketball, I know what my grandkids would be shooting hoops with. (Granted, if it had Herb's signature, they wouldn't be allowed near it.) You know, some of these items would do very well in airport gift shops. ... View more

This was kind of fun - I checked the list of Southwest Cities and I have been to 22 of them on Southwest and 4 on other carriers. Â ... View more

Dang, I hate to throw salt in the Kool-Aide here, but Candy Hearts taste GREAT and Candy Corn is - well - how do I say this - awful. How can anybody eat that stuff? I'm just saddened that Candy hearts are not available year round. And I'm happy that the "blog boy" issue has been partially resolved - USS Blog Boy, we salute you and wish you a long success with your official title. Now what are we going to do about Kim? Blog Boy 2, Jr, the 2nd, etc., just doesn't quite sound right. Hmmm - Eric suggested Prolific Blog Boy. How about shortening "Prolific" to "Pro" - Blog Boy Pro? ... View more

Glad I could make you chuckle Francisco. I'm amazed by some people's thought process. How did Lloyd find BlogSouthwest.com before he found the "check Your Flight Status" button on the home page of Southwest.com? Why does Stephen post his RR/Ding query in a topic about a speech Colleen gave in El Paso? (For that matter, why am I posting in this topic? Because I'm referencing all the other off-topic posts - since they were placed here, it is the most logical place for me to post.) And to answer Stephen's question, uninstall Ding, then when you reinstall, scroll down during set up (it is not intuitive) and you can enter your RR number. And of course, Rose's post is in a category of its own, I can't believe she used her full name. By now she might have sobered up - I wonder if she will have any follow up? ... View more

Two random thoughts: 1 - We (your blogging public) need a "Random Thoughts Go Here" topic each month so it doesn't roll off the front page. 2 - I absolutely LOVE (LUV?) the candy hearts replacing the peanuts. I'm guessing it will be a 24 hour thing in honor of Valentine's Day, but it's COOL! ... View more

A Rose by any other name would smell so sweet. Ah? Rose? I'm confused - your post references nothing, not quite sure where it came from. But - if you don't mind - I've got a few suggestions: Spell Checker - use it well, use it often. On Topic - stay there. Alcohol - drinking and posting don't mix. ... View more

We can all agree Rob's comments were a little out of line, I'm sure the schedule would have been released in December if Bill hadn't been spending his time here on BlogSouthwest.com. Yeah right - one person delayed everything by reading and posting. And this is a moderated blog - SWA chooses not to deny or edit posts like this. They don't mind dissenting opinions. Pretty amazing when you think about it. I admire Bill. He could have easily chosen a user name like SouthWest_Bill, but instead chose to sign in as Bill Owen - Schedule Planning Lead Planner. That's right - he put the big red target smack on his forehead and allowed anybody who wants to put him right in the center of their sites. Have you seen anything like this from any other airline? Ever? ... View more

I'll bet Bill is glad this has rolled of the home page of blogsouthwest.com :-) But I still admire him for coming in and taking hit after hit from disgruntled potential travelers. Me? I just found out I need to go from El Paso to Phoenix and back, then El Paso to Dallas and back, both during the week of May 14. I'm not worried in the least about getting a flight or a seat, I know SWA takes care of me and I will gladly wait until the "bucket" opens and buy my tickets then. ... View more

If you have the book "Nuts", the tale of the "Lousy $13" is on pages 31-33. I like the part where for two months SWA was the largest distributor of Chivas, Crown Royal and Smirnoff in the state of Texas. ... View more

Is it me, or were the ads lackluster and sub-par this year? Nothing caught my eye, none of them made me go "WOW!" ... View more

Kim - it distinctly states you are plane-ly a honey roasted nut. Helmut - Uh, wrong topic. I think you wanted to reply here - http://www.blogsouthwest.com/2007/01/15/a-new-look-for-southwestcom/#comments ... View more

Thoughts: Bill is probably wishing he had never posted on this blog. Many above mention "The system will crash when it opens for May 11+ booking". Rubbish - SWA moves over 2 million people a week, 70% purchase tickets online. I'm sure a system designed to handle 1.4 million reservations a week can easily handle the extra 10-15% load factor it will see. My crystal ball says maybe 2% of the people who promise they will "Never fly Southwest again" will actually make good on their promise. Many people above have suggested setting the system up so each month another month is added - if there are no technical reasons requiring the current "add 120 days to the bucket at a time" system, I think that is something SWA should strive for. Bill Owens has class, it takes guts to come here and face a hostile crowd. Extremely doubtful this situation (less than 120 days available) will ever happen again. SWA has historical data that tells them how many people book how far in advance, I'll bet that was taken into consideration when they set the current time line (back in October? November?) but Mother's Day and Memorial Day weren't considered. SWA messed up, they've admitted messing up, they have apologized and learned - what more could you ask for? ... View more

My French is rusty, but I'm pretty sure these are the bullet points: "We feel sorry for the schedule guy." "We hope they never have assigned seating." "All the employees at SWA are wonderful." "That poor Bill, he's taken too much heat." "They need another "What is this" picture quest again soon." "Kim Seale is truly 'Nuts' about Southwest." "We wish Air France would partner with Southwest." "They have been too mean to Bill Owen." "When are they going to offer honey roasted peanuts again?" And some other stuff, not sure. ... View more

Bill - I'm loving this thread. I can easily answer your question as to why you've never seen this kind of push-back over this "drop to 90 days" compared to other times you've dropped the inventory to 90 days - you didn't have a blog then, people could not vent their frustration quickly and easily. And keep it in perspective - there are 13Â ... View more

I disagree Mathew - what better place for SWA to point it out than on their own blog? Southwest has a company culture that allows it to have rational discussions about the good, the bad, and the ugly - see the thread on the summer schedule being released late for a most recent example. Customers are upset and Southwest lets them speak their mind. In a nutshell - a man needed a liver transplant, flew SWA from Sacramento to Phoenix to the Mayo clinic, where he was told he couldn't get his liver and Mayo referred him back to the University of San Francisco. So he tried to take the next flight back to Sacramento. At this point, he was informed of the COS (customer of size) policy and asked to purchase a second ticket. Here's where everything starts to fall apart. Allegedly (that would be a bold italic "Allegedly") the man informed the gate agent that he was going for a liver transplant and didn't have enough money for the second fare. He even showed (again, allegedly) medical documentation to support his case. Now - think of all the people you know at Southwest and the corporate culture they have. Can anybody think of any single gate agent who wouldn't waive that rule in a heartbeat if every aspect of his story was true? Can you imagine anybody at Southwest hearing, "I've got to get to Oakland today for an organ transplant" and asking the person to fork over more money? Nope - it didn't happen that way, just not possible from Southwest. Look at the title of the blog post that started everything - "Southwest Nearly Lets Liver Transplant Patient Die Because He Wouldn't Buy 2nd Ticket" - you can read the entire thing at http://consumerist.com/consumer/complaints/southwest-nearly-lets-liver-transplant-patient-die-because-he-wouldnt-buy-2nd-ticket-231104.php - but the 'story' doesn't pass the smell test. Digg picked it up, you can read more here - http://digg.com/business_finance/Southwest_Airlines_Nearly_Lets_Liver_Transplant_Patient_Die And flyertalk.com has a few posts - http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=651852 And it will probably make Today In The Sky sometime this morning - http://blogs.usatoday.com/sky/ In summation - there's no way that gate agents, supervisors and customer service all told a dying man "No, since you are a COS, you can't board until you buy your second ticket" when informed of the situation. ... View more

It's getting a little clearer, I'm guessing last year's wind can't be used for this year's schedule for some reason. I prefer the conspiracy theories - new service to the moon, the gate lease price increases at LAX, new airplanes from the factory having in-flight entertainment, assigned seating, etc., etc. Could be the excess gravitational pull caused by sunspots too. But - isn't it really cool that Bill has the courage to pipe in here? I mean, talk about class (and guts) - there's not another airline on earth that has this kind of dialog with their customers, and for the chief bottlewasher to step in and respond speaks volumes about *my* airline. Thanks Bill. ... View more

Bill - your response is clear as mud. If winds aloft cause this year's schedule issues, won't they affect next year's too? But I'm going to take your word for it. I'm also going to take a WAG that the new DAL to anywhere (with a stop) flights play a part in it - you've never needed to add those into the mix before. I love the two conspiracy theories - SWA is delaying the schedule so we don't notice fare increases and negotiation for a new destination is going on and they need to lock the new destination in before releasing the schedule. I have it on good authority that the real reason is Kim Seale might have a new job and SWA needs to if/know when he starts so they can adjust the candy corn distribution properly. Hey - even though the booking window is shorter than normal, we know that there will be lots of flights, going where we want to go, when we want to go, and Southwest will always be the first choice when choosing which airline will take us there. We also know the schedule will be convenient and the booking process will be simple. And, of course, the people at SWA will be friendly, cheerful and helpful beyond measure while taking us from point A to point B safely and on time. ... View more

Bill Says, "weà ... View more

The new home page is clean, bold and pleasant on the eyes. But like all new things, there are a few areas that could be improved. 1 - The scroll down city list used at http://www.southwest.com/cgi-bin/buildItinerary2?src=bktrvl_gn (the 'old' system) is easier than the drop down list on the "Book A Flight" tab at the new home page. I know spacing is tight since the customer photo takes up so much real estate on the home page, but it is doable. 2 - When I use the calendar icon to choose my departure date, today's date is highlighted - that is correct. But when I use the calendar icon to choose the return date, today's date is still the default. The correct default for the return date should be one to four days beyond my departure date. It is done that way on the old system. 1+2 - I would rather click the "Book Travel" top tab (which takes me to the old system) than the "Book A Flight" tab. 3 - Checking in. Somebody above made a suggestion about zero and one and the letters I and O - couldn't you remove the letters I and O from the alphabet that creates confirmation numbers? Then there will never be any confusion. 4 - The "My Southwest" needs to be a sixth tab across the top. 5 - Why not put a link to this blog on your home page? ... View more

I got turned onto this TV program at Christmas while staying with the kids and grandkids in Phoenix - it has turned into a must watch every Sunday. It doesn't surprise me at all SWA is aligned with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - people who want to make other people happy and have fun while they do it. This describes Southwest's family to a "T". ... View more

I just want to add my Christmas greetings and thanks to the blog staff here at SWA. You all (that's "Y'all" for those in Dallas) have created a unique customer interaction tool and a place I visit at least daily. Thanks from El Paso, Texas for a great blog and a great airline. Now I'm off to visit the grandkids in Phoenix (driving) and I will be back in the new year. Jim ... View more

Gordon, Gordon, Gordon... Sigh. How about some photos of the interior, since - "The interior of both airplanes are where you will see the biggest difference" ... View more

I had the pleasure of flying SWA from El Paso to Dallas on Thanksgiving day and home again on Saturday. I know every person working for Southwest would probably have rather been home with family and friends, but they all were extremely gracious and I appreciate their kindness and willingness to allow me to spend Thanksgiving day with my family. 2 questions : A) What happened to those cute little chocolates that said "Gobble, Gobble" I got last time I flew on Thanksgiving day? They were really cool. B) How can your planes be full - I mean completely full - when the terminals were so empty? That was a bit of a shock. And a few comments: C) Those Nabisco blueberry bar things are awful. Hardly anybody eats them. D) The "Plane Crackers" are really good. E) The King brand peanuts are not as good as whatever brand was before them - the lowest bidder isn't always the best choice. ... View more

# 1 is obviously a Frisbee, the new deluxe chrome model. #2 is a CD player with only one bass speaker, you can see the slots to hold CD cases. #3 is a ladder going up to a windmill, the red thing must be some kind of safety device. ... View more

Is there a way to order online? ... View more