Posted on 03/14/2025 5:40:02 PM PDT by tflabo
The U.S. airline industry is an unforgiving, cynical business where success tends to be fragile and short-lived. Unless—until recently—you were Southwest Airlines.
The brand that started flying as a tiny intrastate airline in Texas in 1971 tended to buck industry trends for decades, with consistent profitability, stable workforce relations, and high marks for customer service and operational reliability.
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When I had lots of miles combined with lifetime status, I flew only AA for years. A few years back I had some SWA points for a free flight Kona-Honolulu. It was OK. And they switched us to an earlier flight for no cost. But having status on another airline makes SWA inferior.
My thought is that the bean counters and executives are driving these changes to prepare SWA for sale and merger with another airline.
I fly Southwest frequently and regret it when I have to fly, Delta, American, United.
1. The pilots are all very qualified, experienced. Company policies have them hand-flying the aircraft significantly more than competitors.
2. Lots of us like the “open seating” as is. It has always allowed SW to be more efficient in ticketing and it showed in the lower fares. Oh, well.
3. What has also happened is that the so-called legacy airlines use feeder lines to compete with Soutwest’s fares. A ticket booked on United sounds good, until you find yourself in a regional jet operated by SkyWest, Mesa Airlines, Commuter Air or the like. They might be painted like a United plane, but they are regionals with captains and first officers having minimum flight hours and paid minimum wages. Think aboout the Delta CRJ rolled upside down in Toronto and the American that was hit by the Blackhawk in DC. Both were regionals that fit this description.
Contrast to the Southwest that last week did the unprompted “go-around” when things didn’t “look right” as the private jet wrongly crossed the active runway. I’m not saying pilot experience or inexperience was the number one thing in these incidents, but it is at least a factor.
That’s my opinion.
,,, I never flew SouthWest but I thought the brown leather aviator jackets their pilots wore looked very cool.
There is no other airline that could afford to buy Southwest. Their market cap is over $18 billion.
Me too also.
We were on the road almost constantly as officers in a national boating organization near the turn of the century and two of our dogs gathered 39 states on their “Been There” list. We had to fly to a couple of events and the dogs never forgave us... Big Grin, great memory!
The Southwest market cap is equal to American and United combined. Only Delta has a higher market cap.
Herb was in a great commercial. He was trying to get on a plane as it was backing out. The message was that SW Air left on time no matter who was late.
It looks like they got all the BAD of other airlines without their perks.
Their prices are OK, but not that great.
I liked their fast loading and the free luggage. The free luggage have also a side benefit. People check their luggage and do not try to stuff everything into carry on. So there is not that scramble about trying to fit your luggage into overhead.
That all goes away!
I had the pleasure of meeting Herb Kelleher when I worked a contract with Southwest.
I would dare say, he’s probably the most impressive person I’ve ever met.
He must be turning over in his grave, knowing what is happening to SWA.
They are Profit Maximization Units,not customers. Every Unit must have every extra bit of profits squeezed out of them on every transaction with increasing frequency. I would thank you for flying SWA but you havent bought enough tickets so get online & buy lots of tickets now. But don’t spend too much time on the website because that eats into profits & don’t call the customer service because that eats into profits. Have a nice day.
Customers who act like humans are so annoying & profit margin squeezing. It would be better to have AI agents for customers to maximize profits like they do at the Babylon Bee.
Those stewardesses were on my SWA flight a few weeks ago - they’re a bit older now /s
Yes, she was so cute in this commercial. To think she’s probably in her 80s now.....time is flying. thanks.
When Southwest first started up, every other airline in the business paid pilots and ground crews to be inefficient.
The standard pilot’s contract pays pilots for flying according to actual flight time or block time (scheduled flight time, the time between when the wheel blocks come out and when they go back in), whichever is greater. So if scheduled flight time from JFK to PIT is 90 minutes and the flight takes 85 to get there, pilots still get paid for the 90 minutes. And if it takes 95 minutes, they get paid for 95.
So if flights from JFK to Pit are consistently arriving in 88 minutes, other airlines look at that as an excess fixed cost because they’re paying two pilots for two minutes each when they’re not flying. If it goes on long enough, the airline bean counters will direct direct crew scheduling to reduce the scheduled time for that leg to 88 minutes.
But if you’re a pilot, you see the change of “block time” as as losing two minuted flight pay. So there’s an informal procedure among pilots to ALWAYS BE 5% LATE. Just slow cruise speed a couple of knots, or taxi extra slow to the gate and you can easily add the 5%, which prevents the airline from monkeying with block time to the pilots’ disadvantage.
Ever wonder why Southwest taxis faster than any other airline (or at least used to)? It’s because they paid pilots extra FOR BEING EARLY.
Other airlines paid ramp rats at a set rate with no incentive to turn a flight around under schedule. Southwest paid a bonus if they turned around flights early.
And that’s the way their entire business was structured. Save us money, we pay you a bonus.
Every other airline had a business model that rewarded employees for being inefficient. Only Southwest rewarded industry.
I won’t fly anymore unless I can afford first class.
Literally the issue was if “being female and reasonably attractive” was a legitimate job qualification.
The court said “no”.
Been downhill ever since.
Such a shame, I remember those days.
The stewardesses were first class!
We taxied fast because there was no incentive to drag your feet (unlike other carriers), unless you were going to overfly for whatever reason. If you were early, you got paid for the full scheduled flight time/pay. It made sense to save time.
They also went to a model (at least American did) where instead of straight up miles they use “points” such that flying is about the least effective way to earn them. Spending on the credit card is where it’s at, and i don’t do it.
What you said about Herb both times X 2.
Who owns Elliot? I think these hedge funds should be outlawed and/or broken up..
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