Another Advantage to flying Southwest Airlines in the US

For our recent Volaris trip to Mexico, we used Southwest Airlines for connecting to our flight out of San Antonio. Since I hadn't flown much lately, I was surprised to see TSA Pre on my boarding pass. This allows one to not only go through a special line in participating airports but your don't have to remove shoes, belt or jacket or laptop from your bag. We saw the direct benefit in San Antonio were there were 400 to 500 people lined up for TSA checks and we were able to bypass the entire mess! Out of curiosity, I checked why I had been given this designation and found out that it had to do with their Rapid Rewards Program:
http://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/airport-experience/tsaprecheck.html

Apparently some are concerned over Privacy matters but I certainly don't care when it allows us to get through the lines and we didn't even have to pay the $85 mentioned in the following article:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2014/02/23/tsa-pre-check-expedited-aclu-epic/5208359/

Now if they would only get the blockheads to understand the benefit of 2 free - 50lb bags in checked luggage, it would be easier to load and unload their planes! How about charging for carry on bags?

It's the "Company Plane" Flew to BWI this am on SWA

Southwest Airlines has now announced that they will be flying to certain locations in Mexico:
"Southwest said Monday that it is adding daily nonstop service to Cancun and Los Cabos in Mexico and to Nassau in the Bahamas starting in August. The new routes will begin from Santa Ana/Orange County, Atlanta, Baltimore and Milwaukee. In October, Southwest is to begin nonstop flights from Denver to Mexico."

This was expected after their purchase of AirTran in 2011:

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-southwest-airlines-mexico-bahamas-20140303,0,2892624.story

Another plus for Southwest:

When returning from Mexico through San Antonio, we experienced a minor delay in taking off from San Antonio with a very short connection at Love Field in Dallas. We had our boarding passes and sprinted from one gate to the other. It was obvious that they had boarded the flight and while the gate door was open to the boarding ramp, there was a missing gate attendant. So we proceeded to the plane. Upon reaching the plane, I asked the female flight attendant what we do with our boarding passes. She replied that it wasn't her job and we had to go back to the gate. I took our carry on bags while Kathy went back to the gate where the gate attendant had returned to his post. He proceeded to chew her out with a lecture before taking the boarding passes. Just for drill, I filed a complaint with Southwest expecting nothing to come from it but a little over a week later, I received a phone call. Not only did the supervisor fall all over herself apologizing for the inappropriate behavior on the part of the two Southwest employees but she issued each of us a $50 travel voucher for bringing the matter to their attention. Not a bad deal since each of us had only paid $10 R/T since we were using Rapid Rewards Points for our tickets.

Proof that at least one airline still cares about customer relations!

Once I landed and there was a problem with the plane so as we got off the plane to go to another gate/plane they gave us all a green sticky and told us to follow the captain. Upon getting to the new gate/plane they took our sticky and we got on board. Other (recently bankrupt) airlines would still be pounding on their keyboard trying to re-route us.

SWA can't be beat IMHO

I find Alaska to be responsive to complaints. Both SWA and Alaska have very good ratings for complaints response. According to BBB data US air was worst due to time passing before answering complaints.

Z

I like most everything about Southwest but their cattle car boarding process. In this day and age of computers I don't see how there could be any serious cost to reserved seating.

What's sad is that Volaris started out as a Mexican version of Southwest but seems to have gone badly astray in customer service and reliability.

One word "Time" all of the studies show that reserved seating takes 1/2 to 1 times longer to board and when you have a crew on the ground, crew on the plane and a multi-million asset just setting it will cost you more. They now board by numbers so in essence you do get rsvp.....earliest check-in gets you your own choice of seats.

Remember back when we use to make fun of the "cattle car" boarding process? I have come to accept the process since if one does their check in 24 hours in advance, you are fairly certain of getting an "A" designation and an aisle seat. Now I wish they would follow the precedent set this past week by United. Strict rules on the size and number of allowed carry on bags. If all of the airlines nipped this problem in the bud, the loading and unloading process would be much smoother and reduce the number of delayed flights!

It's OK, at this point there may be minor variation in the details but all flying these days is cattle car quality. My wife and I were remembering our first trip to Europe back in the days when the only way to get affordable fares was "charters." They were the original cattle cars but even they were better than what we have now.

Definitely agree about the carry on luggage.

FYI Cheena. Looks like United Airlines agrees with you.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-airlines-notebook-0307-biz-20140307,0,7023784.story

That is the recently announced policy that I referred to in my earlier post. Many travelers figure that this is a way to get around baggage fees at the expense of other travelers. They have also figured out that some airlines don't charge fees when they get caught at the gate with either too many or too large bags. This doesn't require an MBA in people movement/flow since a simple observation allows one to spot where the problem lies. In the case of Southwest, they allow two 50lb bags for free in checked luggage, so why not get hard nosed with people who insist on bringing all their luggage into the cabin?

Interestingly, Volaris in San Antonio had two agents pre-tagging approved carry ons but then didn't check that people had obviously stashed during the check in process. From what we saw, there were families or groups who had gone to San Antonio to shop and were carrying their purchases on the plane. Conversely, in Guadalajara, they pretty much ignored carry ons during check in but were busting people at the gate for either two many or oversized or too much weight.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_MALAYSIA_PLANE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-08-07-44-52

I hope you don't have any friends or relatives that were on this flight. ..

Ah yes, UseLess Airways. The gold standard for bad airlines.

I remember when US air stopped handing out free water. That didn't last long but oh the
damage.

CheenaGringo wrote:Now from the airline which could care less what their customers think:

"According to a US Airways customer service agent in Phoenix, “US Airways does not charge for the first checked bag on international flights. Flights from the US to Mexico and Canada are NOT considered international flights because they do not cross water.”

Not crossing water?    How do they do that?

Most flights to Canada cross one or more of the Great Lakes and / or the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Almost all flights to MX cross one or more of:   Rio Grande, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean and / or Gulf of California Sea of Cortez.

:-)

The customer service agent would have had a better story if he/she had claimed the three countries comprised North America but doubt that was part of the training. When US Airways and American Airlines are fully merged, it will be the largest and worst airline the world has ever seen!

Inter-continental, perhaps better choice of words??

Pan-oceanic?

No importa, as I won't be flying them either, Cheena.

Out of curiosity, I just checked the US Airways website for their current baggage policies. Apparently, the fly over water definition also includes flights to the Caribbean, Bermuda, Latin America, South America (except Brazil) and there are baggage charges for travel to all but Brazil.