Originally Posted by
Malcolm McLeod
I've flown SW for much of my biz travels and love it (...maybe I AM cattle-esque:confused:). Get me on, throw me a bag of peanuts, and get me off.
Not sure how long ago they switched, or your last ride with them, but you can now check-in 24hrs before scheduled departure - which determines your spot in line. Also, the (cattle?) stalls they put at the gate give people a place to stand. It beats everyone crowding the door, while the people who've been called try to climb over.
SW is faster too. I've watched SW and AA arrive at adjacent gates simultaneously and in 30 minutes SW was loaded & pushing back from the gate, while AA was still trying to clean the cabin. SW seems more democratic than American/USAir: I was near the front with a 'general boarding pass' (or something like that). Then they (AA) board their members in order - Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Semi-silver, Elite, Demi-elite, Quasi-elite, Nearly-elite, Friends-of-the-elite, service members, families, and oh, yeah you can board too. ...I finally sat down just as the plane arrived. Aaarrggghhh!!
To each their own.
Edit: I'll offer a good air travel story, just to counter a bit of the general bashing: Flying SWA out of OKC to Dallas Love in the heat of the summer; flight originated out of Denver and was late; nobody was happy and everybody was hot. Cabin crew was classic Texas friendly, but no-nonsense, as they got everybody seated - explaining the rush repeatedly. At push-back, the Captain announced that there was "no fuel related speed restriction" for the flight (a small cheer went up). We were still climbing when they started serving free drinks. Not positive but we stopped climbing at about 12-15 thousand feet and the pilot nosed over to begin descent and loooonggg final into LUV. He never pulled back on the throttles; the engines were on climb power until about 30 seconds before the flaps came out. Want to see a cabin crew hustle? They finished serving and cleanup in, if memory serves, about 26 minutes of flight time. Everybody on board wanted to buy THEM a drink!