Southwest Airlines Community

As an Albuquerque customer, I am a little concerned that we have now lost 4 non-stop markets this year alone, with SLC being cut earlier in the summer. While these are all once daily markets, I am concerned that these losses are not being made up for to larger cities (DEN in particular, where we are at just 3 flights a day, despite being a rather short flight). I have used the service a couple of times to SLC, and the loss would be a little easier to stomach if we had a couple more daily flights to Denver. The lack of frequency to Denver also has an impact on my choice of airlines when flying to MSP. In some schedules, there are 3 good options to get to MSP via DEN, and in others, there are none. None of the other connection cities on Southwest are very convenient, forcing me to seriously consider using United via DEN, where the connection opportunites are more abundent, or to take advantage of Delta's non-stop service. I hope in future schedules you consider boosting the frenquencies from ABQ to both DEN and HOU, as these markets provide very good connection opportunities to your loyal passengers in Albuquerque. ... View more

Regarding IAH, if you originally operated out of Terminal A, the original gates in that terminal are gone. The original gates were replaced in the 2000's, before Southwest terminated service there. The ticket lobby is similar to the way it was. If the original operations were out of Terminal B, that terminal still has the original gates lobbies, currently being used for Continental Express operations. Interesting pictures, considering the hangers weren't big enough to house an entire plane! ... View more

I hope that when you re-roll the service out at HOU it will go much better than the first time around there. Half the time that line wasn't even open, and there were other times where we would be pulled out of line to the other kiosks because the agents got tied up assisting customers who had other issues. I would recommend that agents working these kiosks not let themselves get tied up with customer issues and just tag bags. If a customer has an issue that needs agent involvement, please take them over to a full service station and allow customers just checking bags access to the kiosk so that it is truly an express service. ... View more

Brian, One thing that I don't think any other poster has mentioned is the future plans Southwest has. The announcement from just 1 month ago regards the 20 737-800's that will be delivered ETOPS is probably one of the most significant announcements Southwest has made, however 99% of the posters probably have no clue what ETOPS means, or even saw that announcement. Come 2012, Southwest will have aircraft that meet the required performance standards to fly to Hawaii, simple as that. Moving forward, the old system would have become far more complicated than the new one once international flights and flights to Hawaii, all on Southwest aircraft, become a reality. Try factoring in how many credits to award on those flights, and how many awards to redeem for those flights. The legacy airlines have award tables on top of award tables for travel all over the globe, not to mention close in booking fees, a fee to book award travel over the phone, fees to redeposit your miles should you have to cancel your trip, and so on. Over time, as Southwest grows, I feel that this will actually be one of the simplest frequent programs out there. The program is actually fairly simple, contrary to the comments from people who a making it way too complicated. This is not a program to the Southwest of yesterday, however I think it will work very well with the Southwest that we will be seeing in the near future. I applaud Southwest for making a program that will work as Southwest expands to bigger and better things, that is a simple as it is. ... View more

While I certainly benefited more from the old system than I will with the new one, I do think the new Rapid Rewards programs is fair to all customers. For everyone saying they are going to bolt to the legacy carriers because this new program is so terrible, do you think their programs are any better? If you flew all short haul with those carriers, back when the 500 mile minimums were still in place (not anymore unless you're elite), it would usually take you 25 round trips to earn 1 domestic round trip ticket, subject to ridiculous capacity controls making the "standard" rewards useless. And if you have to cancel your trip at the last minute, expect to pay another ridiculous redeposit fee just to keep your miles. At least with this program, you earn and redeem based on what you did pay or what you would pay if you hadn't earned points on the flight. I'm also not naive enough to believe that Southwest is the same airline as they were back when Rapid Rewards was established with the fly 8 roundtrips, get 1 free format that the program has been for years. Southwest is a much larger airline with a much more complex network, and with a much longer average trip segment than they had 15-20 years ago. The current program simply did not make sense to the company anymore, and I applaud Southwest for coming up with what amounts to a fair program. While I am not excited about the new program, I do believe it is fair. At the end of the day, I choose to fly Southwest because the choose not to exploit their customers with bag fees and change fees, and I know that the customer service I receive will not be beat by any other airline. Now, if you could bring back service to IAH, with more destinations that just Dallas to choose from for non-stop flights so that I could avoid driving all the way through Houston every time I fly home, that would be icing on the cake. You serve both BWI and IAD, FLL and PBI, OAK SJC and SFO, and all the LA area airports, so why not both Houston airports? Continental has really taken a nosedive in customer service since you pulled out back in 2005, and with the merger with United in full swing this would be the time to strike! ... View more

The BlackBerry app flat out does not work on OS6. You cannot enter your Rapids Rewards number of your information to check in through the app. Guess I'll just be using the mobile site until an update is released. ... View more

Is there any movement to implement paperless boarding passes like the legacy airlines are doing? My last trip was from ABQ-MSP on Delta, and one of the very few advantages of flying on Delta was the fact the they have paperless boarding passes available at both airports (paperless boarding passes being the ones that are sent to your cell phone, with a barcode that the TSA and gate agent scan to verify its authenticity). It worked very well on my phone, was very convenient, and saves on paper. I would hope that Southwest would get on board to implement this, being the largest domestic carrier in the USA! ... View more

As a resident of Albuquerque with family in Minnesota, this is great news! MDW is farther from ABQ than MSP is, so being able to connect in DEN will be very welcome! ... View more