Southwest Airlines Community

Bill, that's a wonderful story, and I have for the most part always been really pleased with my experiences with Southwest, so I give SWA the bulk of my flight business. Living in Chicago, I have many airlines and two airports to choose from (three, if I count Milwaukee, which is less than 90 minutes away). I must share my own experience from 2007. My father had been ill for three years from multiple health issues which he had managed to soldier through, when he abruptly took a hard turn for the worse and it was clear he had little time left - hours or days, maybe a week at most. My parents lived close to RSW and there is a much slimmer selection of airlines flying there than through ORD or MDW. I knew I had to get down to FL immediately or miss my chance to say goodbye. My first call was to Southwest Airlines, my favorite airline. I was pretty surprised to find that SWA didn't offer bereavement/compassion fares. The person in reservations that I was speaking to on the phone told me the "best" she could do was a fare that was still higher than even most of the 'big guys' airlines were offering on less than 24 hours' booking notice, a fact which surprised me, not just because SWA has always had such great customer service, but usually even on short-notice airfares, SWA beats out the likes of AA, UA etc. I have to watch my budget closely, so yes, while it was one of my parents dying and I was going to get to his bedside come heck or high water, I had just paid my rent and money was tight. So I called around to various airlines that service RSW, and finally American came up with the best fare of the bunch, beating out SWA's fare by nearly 30%. I got to say my goodbyes. I understand that there are probably some horrible people out there who attempt to abuse the system because they don't want to pay full fare. But particularly in today's market, where so many people are strapped down to their pennies, brand loyalty is a hard decision versus saving money. I hope that Southwest revisits its policy on bereavement fares and finds a way to allow them for those who genuinely need them. I still fly Southwest as my primary airline, by the way, even as upset as I was at the time. When weather causes delays to "the big guys" up at ORD, Southwest is still doing a great job of being timely through MDW, plus the fares are better in general and the customer service is better. ... View more