Southwest Airlines Community

 I wonder now ---re reading all of the responses to the original post if SWA should pretty much just ban food altogether on a flight  🙂    what is the policy IF a fellow passenger on the flight DID (without knowledge of someone with a peanut allergy on the plane) bring a peanut containing food item?    Is it the normal SWA protocol to pretty much publicly announce on flights that a person has peanut allergies after everyone has boarded--- and confiscate peanut containing items from fellow passengers ?   Just wondering what the current protocol is.             I just got back from a vacation and SWA flight where the flight attendant asked me if I wanted her to announce that I had fragrance sensitivity so ALL of the people on the plane would be aware not to use anything highly scented while on the plane OR....maybe even NOT even sit near me.       Glad I had my doctor's papers with me for the early boarding accomodations SWA is kind enough to provide with the un-reserved seating!   A great plus for my health condition.              I was sooo embarassed already  that I told the flight attendant "no thanks"   I didn't want her to announce on the plane formally     as I didn't want to be singled out as the "weirdo, or that girl with the allergy" whose reactions were dependent upon what other people on the plane might do or not do....as in using synthetic chemical containing or fragrance containing products that would give me sore throat or headache...( heck I was wearing my allergy mask  on the plane as my "allergy" and  fragrance/chemical hypersensitivity  is not something I can control and is a disease that most people do NOT understand as MCS or even Mast Cell Activation Syndrome  sufferers react to  lower than normal levels of substances and scented products in the ambient air thant NORMAL people ).      Then I pretty much shrunk down in my seat and tried to act "normal" burying my nose in the book I brought on the plane.      Thank God that flight was only 90 minutes.         At least I wasn't treated rudely like that  time 2 years ago when the Southwest flight attendant pretty much LAUGHED in my face and said "good luck" avoiding fragranced chemicals on the plane!   That made me seriously angry and I didn't get around to writing to SWA that they need to have their flight attendants display more tact and empathy/compassion in  their interactions  with allergic SWA passengers/customers.        I  seriously do strongly EMPATHIZE with  all peanut or pet  allergy people....you have an allergy or can have allergic reactions and your life and health is sometimes at the mercy of people around you doing or not doing things that could affect the possibility of you getting sick on a flight  and you have little control over unintentional exposures ....sometimes even if all the main precautions are taken to prevent a reaction....at times the unplanned and unforeseen happens....but that is real life. ... View more

After seeing the additional posts on allergies and other environmental or food sensitivities...heck....we may as well all just stay home!  😞     The world has in a way caused all of these health problems when you stop to consider the chemicals and environmental lack of care people give to how they live since the industrial revolution.....   a lot of these things wouldn't exist if we lived healthier lives from the get go...not necessarily blaming people...but have to consider environment as a factor...why do so many seniors now have Parkinson's.....why do so many people now have sensitivity to peanuts....how has being pristinely antibacterial caused antibiotic resistance.....etc etc ... View more

Now part of me thinks some other airline somewhere might be able to make some bucks on catering specifically to the populations that have allergies or sensitivities to some triggering thing, creature, food, chemical.  Overall this just says something about how people's immune systems have been affected by the highly chemical and unhealthily technological way people live these days, destroying our immune systems so that we end up having food sensitivities to foods that we never in the past had sensitivity as much to....   Going back to the specialty airline services...a large number of allergic people would have to fly a lot to make it worth that airline's while...ugh the bottom line stinks.  I can envision it now....the peanut allergy plane, the fragrance free plane, the dog / pet allergy free plane....no wonder people with allergies like this end up driving or finding other modes of transport LOL.   I don't know about the viability of making enclosed compartments of a plane that cater  to pet allergy passengers, chemical allergy passengers...etc etc etc   No one really enjoys being crammed in a plane like a sardine overall just to get somewhere, but we all do it because we need to live.....and enjoy life.....   Just don't get me started about the FAA and general public's ignorance about "bleed air" in airplane cabins causing mysterious "flu-like symptoms" ....the public only cares about what they know that is familiar...if it's unexplained only if someone gets really sick do they even try to find out the cause....no wonder more and more people see holistic practitioners nowadays....conventional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry   just wants to medicate us all....    Signed,  a member of the population with chemical sensitivity/fragrance sensitivity/environmental illness   reneerose ... View more

I guess the answer is the same as the answer that travel funds can't be used to pay for a rental car....sad...they should at least permit them for early bird check in because it's related to the travel funds being used by Sept 2018 for me...sigh.... ... View more

Oh...since you put it that way.  🙂  Long live Southwest! ... View more

I wish you could provide a lower fragrance seating area of the plane for people with reactivity to strong fragrances or chemical sensitivity who get set off and have sore throat or headache reactions to people who wear heavy fragrance or have residue of scented personal care product on their person.   GRANTED - I know that most people don't seem to have hypersenstivity to fragrances, at least not yet to a high level of sensitivity like people diagnosed with normal conditions like diabetes or celiac disease.....and environmental illness is not one of the more acknowledged or mainstream health conditions in the field of medicine...the typical person who has no personal experience with EI or MCS think we're all psychosomatics!  Which is really sad!      Increasing numbers of people are becoming environmentally ill and they don't know how much of what they eat, breathe, drink, sleep, and the chemicals used in their daily lives affect them and indirectly cause the chronic health conditions that cause a lower quality of life.      If there was a lower scented part of the plane, that would help a LITTLE for fragrance sensitive passengers to have to wrap up their faces with masks and scarves to avoid breathing in personal care product fragrances/chemicals.   At least you have un-reserved seating and permit those with health issues to board first which is much appreciated.   I know you can't really abolish all chemicals in the cabin...I mean I have to wrap my scarf around my head when I smell the jet fuel at take off!   I seriously empathize with the peanut and wheat sensitive people, just residue of a especially scented product or products containing petrochemicals are enough to give me a bad migraine, lung pain, or sore throats.  But I have to fly to get to places or go on vacation so I bring my mask and that helps me try to live a normal life.     There are asthmatics for whom breathing in perfume or scented product residue in the air can trigger an asthma attack.  People fly because they have to and people with allergies need to be able to have a life and have  their health conditions respected!    People with allergies have to be hypervigilant to protect themselves because they can't control what other people do.     Edited to add:   But hey I do agree that an airline exists mainly for profit and health conditions of people don't really matter more than the bottom line.  And a plane is such an enclosed space/can of sardines so that it makes people like me who are totally afraid of flying think about taking other means of transport or driving myself! ... View more

Thanks DFW and Dancing David!     Okay that makes sense sort of...but then it's a travel expense like traveling on the subway brings in revenue, and you can always use the balance,  it should maybe give a little middle ground to use the extra travel funds within 6 months of the expiration date instead of by the expiration date.   But yeah subway commuting vs plane flights are a bad comparisn.   Would Southwest be able to make up in additional bookings the money they are afraid to lose if they would only be a little flexible with the expiration date and pushing it out to 6 months of the expiration date?   Curious if that would change their profit margin.  ... View more

Ok thanks....I guess because of the association, the instinctive response is to think that travel funds extend beyond air travel and companies.....oh well....goodbye $49.50 in unused travel funds that I can't even use towards early bird check-ins ... View more

Hi:   I'm new here.  Can I get travel funds converted into love vouchers?  I have $49.50 to use in travel funds and apparently if I have to use it by Sept 18 then it won't let me even if I book a flight 8 months past the Sept 18 expiration date of the travel funds....Why does Southwest do this to people? ... View more

So if my $49.50 expires Sept 18  2018 and I book a flight to L.A. for May 2019, even though I want to fly in May 2019, it won't let me do that and I'm forced to fly to L.A. by Sept 18, 2018??  Why does Southwest make it so hard for people to use unused travel funds for a rental car? ... View more

Seriously?  I cannot use leftover $40 for a rental car for a currently booked Southwest trip?  Why do they do this to us?  I know.  Profits. ... View more