I flew AUS-MDW-PIT on Saturday the 20th and flew back on the same route on Sunday the 28th. On two of my four flights, I grabbed the aisle seat in the second row on the left side and sat with two young men. I mainly was happy that I got a good seat. I also knew that with kids I could sit more comfortably, as they take up less space.
I had one flight with two fat guys in the seats. That wasn't pleasant.
I've noticed that just about all unaccompanied minors are products of divorce. I felt sad for them. Some of them seemed to be experienced flyers. One told me that he flew about "once a month."
I also noticed that most of them are male. My guess for this is that most kids end up with their mothers and that the boys want to see their fathers more than their daughters do. Perhaps, the fathers also want to see their boys more. What's your theory?
On Sunday the 28th, I observed that both of my flights had been overbooked. Having worked almost three years in the hotel business, I know that overbooking is a necessary evil. In the end, things almost always worked out for us at the hotel. On one of those, I called out to the flight attendant that a seat next to me was still not taken. I think they went and got a passenger who would have been bumped off otherwise.
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12-30-2008
04:17 PM
11 Loves
You can wrap gifts when you get to your destination.
Actually I stopped wrapping presents years ago. It just creates trash and wastes time and money.
And when I tell Christmas travelers that I ship stuff, they often say that they wish they had done that. Who wants to haul a bunch of stuff around the airport?
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12-10-2008
03:16 PM
2 Loves
I would still love to see more connections to Pittsburgh, specifically a BNA-PIT connection. I actually fly from Austin.
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LaGuardia also has a perimeter restriction of 1500 miles. Because of that restriction, this decision kind of surprised me.
I'm a little surprised that Southwest isn't considering or trying to get into HPN.
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11-06-2008
05:40 PM
13 Loves
I had to change my Christmas flying plans. It was a breeze. There was no extra charge, except for the difference in price.
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01-26-2008
09:49 AM
9 Loves
I would love to work at Southwest. Do I have to have a relative working there already to get a job there?
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There are direct flights between AUS and PHL. There are direct flights between PHL and PIT. Is there a reason why there are no AUS-PIT flights through PHL?
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11-19-2007
07:27 AM
2 Loves
Many times, businesses take the risk of alienating their current customers with the hope of attracting new ones. History seems to indicate that this doesn't always pay off.
I never had any problem with the system of open seating. It seemed kind of funny the first time, but then I was okay with it. The bottom line was that I soon found that I was able to get better seats.
It seems to me that this system was designed to appeal to travel columnists instead of Southwest's current customers. I will see it first hand soon enough.
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Like it or not, the price of gas is going up. This is why air fares on ALL the airlines are going up.
It's nice to see you all adding some more connections to and from AUS. I would like to see some more AUS-PIT connections, even if they involve one stop.
How soon, by the way, before Southwest gets all of its gates consolidated at the awful airport in PHL? I had to change there once and had to go out of security and back into security to make the change.
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10-05-2007
06:46 AM
3 Loves
I worked as a hotel receptionist for about 33 months. Just like airlines, hotels overbook for the same reasons. The only difference is that (most of the time) our canceled reservations never paid us anything. If it was just a 6pm hold and they didn't show, we got nothing.
And in some cases, an early reservation might pay more than a walk-in. It all depended on how many rooms we had available. I worked nights, and my GM told me clearly: "Don't let anyone walk out."
I would definitely like to see more PIT connections. That's the closest airport to where my family lives. I am in Austin.
Airfares in Austin are getting pretty outrageous. My roommate works as a ramp agent for another airline and tells me that the airport has already reached its capacity. Maybe that's the reason. It's only eight years old!
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I find the hostility toward children in this discussion rather troubling. I flew near two kids last December, and they were just fine.
However, if you have a child under four, allow only one adult or teenager to preboard with them. That's a simple solution to preboard abuse.
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I'm a single man with no kids. I also happen to like kids. I don't care all that much if kids are around when I do fly.
The last time I flew on Southwest, I was first off the plane both times. I attribute this mainly to the system of open seating. I actually held up a small sign: PLEASE KEEP OPEN SEATING. In summary, I have simply had better seats on Southwest.
If I were a parent, I am not sure how I would feel about the changes. It's an understatement that kids require a lot of time. I personally don't see anything wrong with the kids under five pre-boarding. However, I am also confident that such a system was abused.
As a son who lives about 1300 miles away from his own parents, I wonder about this as well. And my parents are barely able to fly anyway.
The fact of the matter is that the country's population is aging. People are getting married later and having less children. People are living longer. It's probably more common for grandparents to fly to visit their grandchildren than it is for grandchildren to fly to visit their grandparents.
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09-18-2007
07:13 PM
1 Love
I think many of these myspace sites are impostors. The site I found has been deleted.
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09-17-2007
11:01 PM
1 Love
I checked out her myspace page. It's easy to find if you just search on her name. She isn't even that good looking in some of those photos. She created her myspace this month. It seems like she is just looking for publicity, and the news media gave it to her.
Do I think the Southwest employee acted inappropriately? Well, yes, I do. I personally don't care what people wear. I worked as a hotel receptionist for almost three years. The only thing I cared about was whether or not our customers could pay their bills.
Kyla has went way beyond her 15 minutes of fame. This seems like a cheap way to get some attention. Perhaps, she is trying to get into _Playboy_ or something?
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08-24-2007
09:51 PM
3 Loves
I'm okay with this as long as SWA keeps OPEN SEATING. I love open seating. The bottom line is that I have generally gotten better seats when flying with SWA. I don't care that much about having a windows.
The last times I flew SWA, I was the first person off the plane both times. That's cool. I was in the A group both times.
PLEASE KEEP OPEN SEATING.
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07-20-2007
06:10 PM
17 Loves
Maybe Herb will go into business consulting? If I am ever start a new business of any kind, I would love to have a few hours with Herb just to pick his brain.
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PLEASE KEEP OPEN SEATING.
Also, if Southwest does go to a new computer system, get on web sites like Orbitz and Expedia. I think this is definitely the best move for Southwest.
PLEASE KEEP OPEN SEATING.
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PLEASE KEEP OPEN SEATING.
I would like to see more PIT routes, but I also understand that it is an area with declining population. I couldn't help but notice that many of the new connections to Denver will probably be used to connect Dallas to Denver.
PLEASE KEEP OPEN SEATING.
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Our pilots are so good that they can take off and land on the desert sand.
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Some say that this is a pre-emptive strike against an airline which plans to start with its home base at SFO.
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Without mentioning the airlines by name, a recent article in the _Fort Worth Star-Telegram_ indicates that two other airlines are not happy with this agreement at all. As I posted here earlier, an official with the Collin County is also not happy with it. He told me that they are hoping to expand to allow commercial flights.
Competing airports co-exist in many areas in the USA. These airports are also run by different airport authorities. Here are some examples:
Los Angeles, Orange County, Burbank, Long Beach
St Petersburg, Sarasota, Tampa
Fort Lauderdale, Miami
San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland
Fundamentally, this problem was created back in the 1960's when the feds forced this disastrous marriage between Dallas and Fort Worth. Love Field having passenger traffic violates the agreement, so does all the cargo traffic (including FedEx) at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth. Like all bad marriages, the biggest winners have been attorneys.
Repealing Wright would actually help DFW. Fares would go down, and air traffic would go up. The airport would see increased concession revenue, parking, etc.
Love Field also has some disadvanatages anyway. Because of its shorter runways, it will never be able to support the really big planes used in flights to Europe and Asia. It's also not convenient to any expressway. But an airline which maintains a fleet entirely of 737's like Southwest doesn't need runways that are 2.5 miles long.
Here's a nice web site which tells the story of what Love Field used to be:
http://oldterminals.topcities.com/love.html
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At first, I was a little upset by this decision. But I realize more and more that Herb was really the only one in the room looking out for the interests of Southwest and the many fliers in the Metroplex. Everyone else was in the DFW's backpocket. Why were these meetings conducted in secret? Why not have open meetings? I think if Herb could have seen how many people support killing WA, maybe he would have fought a little harder.
Here are some forgotten facts. The Metroplex has over 5,000,000. Dallas only has a little over a million, and FW has about half that. They mayors do NOT represent people from Plano, Irving, Arlington, or Garland. In fact, those mayors don't even represent their own citizens. What would stop Plano or maybe Collin County from deciding: "The heck with you guys, we're building our own aiport." What would Southwest do in that situation? What would the DFW lobby do?
I find it interesting that FW has been supportive of Alliance. Of course, Perot has always been the typical crony capitalist. He's not much better than AMR.
Actually there is another solution Southwest could consider here. Southwest's market capitalization is over $13 billion, while AMR's is less than $5 billion. How about doing a hostile takeover of AMR? The main problem is that I think the execs at Southwest are just "too nice" to try something like that.
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Hopefully, Mister Kelly realizes now that many of us like open seating. That's one of the tough things about customer service is that customers don't complain until you try to take something away that they like. Perhaps Southwest execs never realized how much some of us like open seating.
I worked in the hotel business for almost three years. One thing I learned from a Holiday Inn trainer is that it costs $50 to keep an old customer, but it costs $500 to get a new one. Don't risk alienating your old customers with the hope that you might bring in other ones. Let the small minority complain about open seating. Screw the _Wall Street Journal_.
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Please, please keep open seating. One pilot of yours told me that open seating saves you all a lot of money. I laso ike being able to pick my seat. Please, please keep open seating.
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