Southwest Airlines Community

Planning on going to Sea World in San Antonio in June. Already have Rapid Rewards (RR) tickets booked for the outbound leg and will book return leg soon. Planning Southwest for the return. Thanks for having RR availability at a very reasonable number of points required. I am seeing good prices for the return. SWA is #1 domestically! ... View more

To OPNLguy's comment regarding the clock being turned back to 1903. In addition to memories of 9/11, another one stands out in my mind on Friday, Sept. 14. I was in Michigan and I needed to get back to Colorado. Had a ticket the night before on Northwest, but the system had not recovered yet, so I was driving back on I-80. It was great that National and all the car rental companies allowed people to drop off anywhere without the not-where-you-rented-it drop off charge. I was about 30 miles east of Omaha and, like 9/11, it was a beautiful blue-sky day. Driving, instead of flying was in my mind regarding the impact of that day. I'd look up in the sky and not see any contrails. But, then I saw an American MD-80 climbing out from Omaha, perhaps one of the first to get back in the air. It was like the first flower on a burnt field after a wildfire. The very first sign of recovery. ... View more

I love the new commercial about "no change fees" airing in Denver. ... View more

A great review of a typical Southwest flight. (remember, great service is typical at Southwest) I disagree with the reviewer's 4/5 rating regarding bag check-in. He didn't need to be in the line to check bags. The gate agent perhaps assumed that he didn't fly much, so the agent helped him with the kiosk. Give him/her a 5/5 for that! A bit rushed? Maybe, but just trying to help the undercover flyer through the line so that those who needed to check bags could do so. He should have checked a bag, just so he could compare the bag check process at Southwest and at other carriers. Then he should have commented about the step that is eliminated at Southwest -- the one where you have to pull out your credit card and pay for checking the bag. Give Southwest a 6/5 on that one! ... View more

Too funny and yet, a serious reason to fly Southwest too. No change fees is awesome too! ... View more

Very interesting article. When I fly in and out of Denver, if I have time, I will go and walk United's concourse B before flying out on Southwest. What I observe is a lot fewer customers on concourse B (United's) than on concouse C (Southwest's). I will also walk by the baggage claim areas and Southwest's is crowded whereas United's is not. While this is not a scientific comparison, at least to me it shows that those flying with bags are figuring it out and flying where "bags fly free." I was a fan of Southwest and no change fees long before anybody invented bags fees. Bags fly free, for me, is just an added reason to fly Southwest. Try it on any route -- pull up Southwest's web site and United or other legacy carrier's web site and then price compare. I often find, for flights 14+ days out, that some UA flights are the same price as SWA flights on the base fare, but then of course you have to add bag fees. Other times, UA flights will be higher and then you have to add bag fees on top of that! And, you know you are going to get a lot better service on SWA than you are going to get on a legacy carrier. At least for me, 99 times out of 100, SWA is clearly the better choice. Only some quirk about flight schedule, who's flying with me or meeting me, or going to a non-SWA city might be the outside chance that a legacy carrier might be the better choice. Its very rare that a legacy is the better choice. ... View more

Paula will be missed. This blog web site is incredible. Although Southwest is clearly the best way to fly for many reasons, this blog further makes flying with SWA very enjoyable. ... View more

There seems to be an error here! No frills? Free snacks, free drinks, no change fees, no bag fees. That is a lot more frills than those legacy carriers. OK, you don't have first class, but then again, without paying through the nose, how many times does even a frequent flyer (unless he is super double platinum elite) really get upgraded? Give me SWA any day! ... View more

Shhhhhhh.... Don't tell those legacy carrier guys. They think they are actually making money on their bag fees. ... View more

No bag fees and no change fees are my primary reasons for flying Southwest. Flying a family of 3 with 5 or 6 checked bags for the holidays. Fares were already better on SWA than the other airlines and when you add in bag fees, the decision is a no brainer. Add to that that SWA has the very best customer service! ... View more

It does look like a lot of fun to go to a new Southwest city. The couple with small child that would travel to each new city confirms that. Brian -- How did you break your arm? ... View more

I downloaded this to my iPod and watch it during Southwest flights. ... View more

Max, I do hope that SWA is NOT the next TWA or Ozark in St. Louis. I think I know what you are saying -- that you want that much service. I just don't want SWA to go the way of TWA or Ozark. There certainly are enough open gates there in STL for SWA to expand all they want... And the D gates are connected to the E gates, so all that could work. ... View more

Incredible story. Southwest employees are legandary in their service. Combine that with the best airline to do business with (no bag fees, no change fees, no telephone fees, best web site, etc. etc.) and the reason that you guys are #1 is obvious. I was just on a United flight a few days ago (sorry, you don't fly to YVR and SEA didn't seem practical) and the differences in attitude and service are so amazing. Just the simpliest of stuff seemed to be a struggle for them. Thankfully, I'll be back flying the truly Friendly Skies of Southwest both this coming Sunday and next Sunday. And, customers, don't be afraid to tell a SWA Customer Service person when you have a special situation -- because Southwest will go out of their way to help as much as possible. Unlike those other guys, the company rewards them for being nice to you! ... View more

F9 failed because Southwest simply is a better product with no bag fees and no change fees. A lot of people think that customers don't know about the bag fees and change fees, but there are certainly enough that do and those people fly Southwest. If F9 would have seen that bag fees and change fees were driving their customers away and adopted the no bag fee and no change fee policy of Southwest, they wouldn't have gone into bankruptcy. But, they didn't. They thought they could get away with them because they had Direct TV. That didn't work. I look forward to flying on a Frontier Airbus, owned by Southwest, maybe even repainted to say Southwest, where I did not have to pay bag fees or change fees. Further, I look forward to Southwest moving into the "A" gates at Denver. Southwest has always taken care of their employees and I am confident that the Frontier employees who come over to Southwest will be getting a good deal from Southwest. But, they do need to learn to have some fun at their job, like those Southwest folks! ... View more

For the last couple of months, I have been shopping for a new phone with a better browser. When I went to Verizon (Blackberry Storm), AT&T (iPhone) and Sprint (HTC Touch Pro), I asked them to show me one web site (www.southwest.com) to prove to me that it was a good phone. For me, it was the gold standard test. I settled on the HTC Touch Pro and now just tried mobile.southwest.com. WOW. Its so fast. I love that I can get my account balance. The old mobile.southwest.com did need a bit of an Extreme Makeover: Web Edition, so to speak. The new one is great! A cool icon would have been nice but no big deal. On my phone, the default title was "Welcome to Southwest" but I changed it to "Mobile Southwest Airlines" No big deal. ... View more

I watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition almost every week and it always makes me smile at the end when they say "Air Transportation provided by Southwest Airlines." Its like "hey, that is 'my' airline." I've always wondered, when they send the family to a non-Southwest city (one went to Paris, France, for example), does Southwest help with the cost of air travel? Also, I've wondered when the family lives far from a Southwest city, how does that work? ... View more

Hold the line and don't charge those bag fees! I especially love that you don't charge change fees as well. Consider how "right" Wall Street has been recently. They know so much about Mortgaged Backed Securities, don't they? Clearly, they don't know how to run an airline either! ... View more

Brett posted his schedule above with the link. Here is mine: First 737-700 Departs SNA at 7:00 AM local time SNA-SMF-SNA-SMF-SAN-LAS-BWI gets into BWI at 23:50 local time The "Herb" times in takeoff/land pairs for the above are: 0900-1025 1055-1220 1250-1415 1445-1605 1635-1740 1810-2250 Second 737-700 Departs BWI at 7:15 local time BWI-MCI-OAK-SAN-SMF-SNA-SMF-SNA gets into SNA at 21:00 local time The "Herb" times in takeoff/land pairs for the above are: 0615-0905 0935-1330 1400-1525 1555-1725 1755-1915 1945-2110 2140-2300 The 737-300 Departs LAX at 6:00 local time LAX-PHX-LAS-SMF-LAS-SLC-LAX gets into LAX at 16:35 local time The "Herb" times in takeoff/land pairs for the above are: 0800-0915 0945-1050 1120-1245 1315-1430 1500-1615 1645-1835 Every ground time was exactly 30 minutes. Mark Robinson of Colorado ... View more

WOW... FCFree here! I was surfing around on Flyertalk and found a link back to this page. Thank you for reading my post. The 'no change fee' feature really is a huge advantage. The change fee is just a really annoying thing with those 'other guys' in Denver. More people than you might think know about the no change fee feature. Where I found this page from back at flyertalk, they are all talking about it. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=8079770&posted=1#post8079770 Thanks again for reading my post! ... View more