11-22-2007
05:25 AM
1 Love
Dear Sirs:
For some 35 years, I have flown Southwest almost exclusively out of Houston Hobby. I made the switch to Continental about a year ago, after having grown weary of the disproportionate number of leisure travelers on each flight. As a small business owner, traveling on business, I simply found myself part of a smaller and smaller segment of business passengers. Southwest definitely shifted it's focus toward leisure customers, all the while making changes and reducing business passenger benefits. Making the change to Continental was difficult at first, having been a loyal Southwest customer for so many years, but truthfully, the transition became much easier when I realized how similar Continental services and business traveler benefits were to the original Southwest Airlines business traveler, many years ago. While I hope the new business traveler program is successful, I would like to remind Southwest management that you can't have it both ways, your primary focus has to be on one segment or the other. In my opinion, current Southwest management has already succeeded in turning off a significant portion of business travelers over the last several years, I can only surmise that they'll now offend their primary leisure travelers, in their effort to regain lost business travelers. I wish Southwest success in this new program, but once again I see current Southwest Management playing with fire, convinced that they're going to satisfy everyone. As in most of their decisions over the last few years, they are simply pushing more and more of their better customers into the arms of their competitors. What made Southwest successful to begin with is the fact that they were different than the other carriers. Current Managment seems determined to become more and more like every other carrier. At the end of the day, I strongly believe that the current path, will end up being the demise of Southwest.
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