As a long time and loyal SWA customer this announcement made me feel squeasy (queasy with a smile). I'm thankful for the additional destinations, but have a lot of questions. Are you adding their fleet of 717's to your fleet? How will the AirTran employees affect your legendary SWA culture? ATL is an ugly bottle neck, I'm afraid adding this to your existing hubs will create all kind of delays through your network. Your corproate culture, simplicity of a single fleet and avoidance of major hubs has a lot to do with SWA's sucess. This is a risky move.
... View more
I just booked flights from BNA-MSP through MDW by booking each RT leg separately on 2 tickets for $57 less than your best fare from BNA-MSP on one ticket. Exact same flights, two different prices, the nice thing is I'll get double RR credits. This has been a common practice with the "other" carriers. I've been a Southwest fan and frequent flyer for 15 years in part because you have ethical and fair pricing. It seems ever since you started this campaign to fly into the major hubs, like Denver, Minn., Logan, NYC, etc. you've started to pick up some of the bad habits of the hub and spoke carriers.
... View more
10-21-2008
06:17 PM
11 Loves
I have a scheduling comment regarding the cancellation of direct service from BNA to SEA. The new schedules that replaced a 4 to 5 hour flight were 8+ hour connections through MDW and LAS or a 3 stop that I'm not brave enough to take. The MDW connection has a 2.5-hour lay over. These long flights are an indication that SWA has abandoned this route; especially given that Frontier has a simple 6-hour connection through Denver with favorable departure times. I can understand cuts in service if the route isn't profitable, but surely it could have been combined with another leg to such as MCI to create a simpler schedule. I make this commute several times a year and this change forces me to spend an extra day in Seattle if I take SWA.
... View more
One more comment about the Nashville to Seattle flight reduction:
The flight always seemed full when ever I took it and I'm not too happy with the new Nashville to Seattle schedules. My Seattle commute on SWA will change from 4-5 hours (direct) to 9 hours. That's a pretty drastic change. I refuse to spend an etire day getting out there. I noticed that Frontier now has a flight through Denver with a short connection time, total trip time 6 hrs. 15 min. It looks like they'll benefit from your schedule change.
One more thing, in you add campaign about hidden charges, you should also mention the other airlines change fees. This is a big cost for business travelers.
... View more
OPEN SEATING IS ONE REASON I LUV YA!
I prefer open seating. I get aisle seats on 90% of my flights regardless of when I book and I never stand in line until the boarding process has started. I'll admit having heard fellow frequent flyers complain about open seating (cattle cars). I wearily attribute this to an excuse they give their bosses for why they pay more money to fly on non-profit airlines. By the way, these same individuals also use their frequent flyer miles to travel abroad, which is probably the true reason they prefer connections, hub delays, rude flight attendants and $1,000 walk up fares.
If you want to expand your customer base start flying to more exotic locations. I for one would like to see BWI flights into the low cost European hubs. Code share with Ryan Air and Easy Jet, you're doing it to Hawaii.
... View more
