I fly weekly for work -- usually US Airways. I just had my first trip on Southwest, a vacation weekend in Las Vegas. The experience left much to be desired, and unfortunately all of the disappointments were due to other passengers and a lack of vigilance by the Southwest flight crew.
The "cattle car" method of boarding ads tension as everyone is jockeying for their place in line to get the best seat available.
People traveling with friends often try to save seats or entire rows, completely defeating the purpose of staged boarding. I was traveling with my wife as was denied access to two adjacent seats by a passenger who was saving the seats for his friends. He wouldn't budge and the flight attendants did nothing. My wife and I had to move back toward the front of the plane and sit apart from each other for the 4 hour flight.
Passengers almost never abide by the "one bag under your seat" rule -- making it harder to take advantage of the bags fly free claim.
Southwest; you could go from worst to first simply by vigorously enforcing your own rules and by insisting that passengers behave.
I'll not fly SW again. Paying a few dollars more for a predictable experience is worth it.
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