A vote FOR Southwest Airlines from a first-timer

[CruiseFever]

Southwest Airlines makes low-cost easy to swallow.

 

"Tricky" is not a term normally associated with an airline. Neither these days are Vanilla Wafers, Honey Roasted Peanuts, Champagne and happy employees. Southwest breaks free of the all too visible cost-cutting, downsizing, and reality television-quality survivor-like ambiance that pervades the airline industry today.

 

And this really is a low cost airline.

 

Our round trip fare from Kansas City to Fort Lauderdale was about 40% less than the rest who were all in the same ballpark.

 

The only visible sign of low cost operations, to me, is the no reserved seat policy where passengers are divided into three groups, A, B and C depending on when they get their boarding passes (first-come first-served= fair enough) and a miscellaneous group which includes those traveling with kids under 4 (one adult per kid), the elderly and handicapped which get on first.

 

On board the anticipated pushing and shoving to get a good seat remarkably did not happen. While both legs of our flight were pretty full, we were able to find seats together first in a coveted exit row with extra room and then in the front row of the plane, a great location for antsy flyers like me who can?t wait to bound off the plane and into vacation land.

 

While seating procedure I was worried about did not in fact resemble a rock concert of the 70's the service did. Roll back the clock to a day when they (the airline industry) gave a dang about us and you have Southwest Airlines. Absent were the paltry bags of pretzels begrudgingly doled out by Delta or American Airlines. Here it was crisp Vanilla Wafers and Honey Roasted Peanuts. Was I dreaming?

 

Maybe it doesn't seem like such a big deal reading this. Actually sitting here now writing this it doesn't seem like as big of a deal as it was. But it was. It was a little surprising thing that made a difference.

 

And isn't it always the little things that DO make a difference?

 

Little things like the gate attendants.

 

Gone here are the sour employees who simply count heads and shuffle the passengers on to the plane. Here are employees who actually, genuinely seem to like their jobs. I suspect that the managers make this happen and the attitude flows freely throughout the company. Waiting for the flight to begin I looked out of the window and noticed ground crew with the same dang happy look on their faces too.

 

A real good example of this happened right before my eyes

 

There was an elderly lady in a wheelchair who got on our flight in Kansas City. Connecting in Orlando she continued on the same flight as we were on. Just prior to boarding the gate attendant got on the loudspeaker for a special announcement. It seems that it was this lady's 100th birthday and the gate attendant (seems like a very impersonal term for this bubbly person) led us in a singing of Happy Birthday to her and presented her with a bottle of champagne! I'd never seen this on an airline before.

 

Technically our flights were flawless and our luggage handled without incident. I think we might have even waited less time for it in Fort Lauderdale but by then I might have been anticipating good stuff from this outfit so much that efficiency in this area just seemed to be a given.

 

Southwest Airlines: Good company, Happy employees, Great fares

[TheWog]

Thanks Chris for your Southwest review. I would agree with your assessment, with one major difference. We got Oreos on our flight, not vanilla wafers. :D Glad it went well.

[Coolmama_1]

We always fly SWA if we can. They have great specials and super service. You can now also go online after 12:01am the day of your flight and print your boarding pass. This way you don't get sandwiched in one of the middle seats:eek: