Or, you can just Fly SouthWest Airlines
Posted on 05/06/2007 6:44:23 PM PDT by jiggyboy
[C]arriers have introduced a variety of fees to reach even deeper into customers' pockets. Some, like Northwest Airlines, are charging as much as $15 for coach passengers to reserve a more leg-friendly aisle seat.
Others, like American Airlines, are charging up to $15 for changes to seat assignments that aren't made online.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Since it's the SF Chronicle, it's a lot of wailing and moaning. I say: fine. If an airline is going to avoid the overhead of food service, movies, etc., and that results in a lower ticket price for me, I'll pack a lunch and some magazines. That's capitalism.
Or, you can just Fly SouthWest Airlines
My last flight on Northwest to Seattle and back, I gladly paid $30 for the better seats. And that flight, from Washington DC to Seattle was only $300 round trip.
Makes perfect sense.
Southwest ought to charge $10 extra for an A pass, and let the rest be Bs and Cs.
I tried to sneak into one of the empty emergency-exit seats on my last flight but they chased me out when they saw me there.
Here’s one for any lurking airline executives: I’d pay for a good sleeping pill that knocks me out cold until the guy in the row in front of me is getting out of his seat and digging his coat out of the overhead bin after we’ve landed.
Until then I’ll take my chances smuggling a flask of booze past the X-ray machine.
I wish they had assigned seats.
Indeed. Another example is Frontier Airlines, which partners with Jet Blue giving us TV's in the back of the seats. There's one movie for free, and 24 satellite channels for like $8 for the flight. They can get me from my point A to point B on short notice for 2/3 of United and maybe that's one of the factors.
We drive, airlines die! I hate the lines anyway.
What is the problem?
“Others, like American Airlines, are charging up to $15 for changes to seat assignments that aren’t made online.”
Not entirely true. They charge for seat assignments, when reservations are made through a non American Airlines booking source. Book with AA directly, through any source available, and you can change your seats as often as you like free of charge.
Easy to do. Don't put it in your bag. Carry it on... in a glass bottle, not a flask.
As far as I am concerned, Southwest saved the American consumer from the slavery of air travel. Wherever Southwest operates, the others snap in line. No Southwest equals higher fares and more restrictions. For this reason, if Southwest doesn’t go there, I don’t either, or I drive. Period. I will not patronize the also-rans who would gladly stiff me if not for Southwest keeping them honest.
As for seating, all A passes and most B passes are good seats. If I get an A pass, I don’t even get in line. It’s not that difficult.
Short notice one way equals a house payment on most airlines in markets not served by Southwest. I can fly tomorrow, one way to just about anywhere in the US for a couple of hundred bucks. If I change my mind, credit back to my account, no questions asked. No penalties. Btw, $10 extra for an A pass is a horrible idea, imho.
They are the best.
Well, since my name apparently is on the watch list, I can’t choose my seats on-line. I can’t use the computerized kiosks either. I have to show up at the counter and produce my ID. Only then do I get a seat.
I honestly don’t get the attraction of Southwest. I’ve flown it once or twice. It’s like riding the city bus, only the bus has more leg room. I always pay a little more and get an assigned seat with more leg room, usually with American.
They're a great choice. Unless you live in Iowa (they don't fly anywhere within a four-hour drive of here). Or unless you want to fly over salt water; they don't do that.
How does one drive across the atlantic or pacific?
How about those who have to do business and do not have a few days between point a and b?
Who ever came up with that ideal should have been made president of the airline. Besides being incredibly convenient to us, they must be saving millions on paper and printing.
My God....they have us doing their job, picking up the price for the boarding pass saving them money on labor and we are the ones excited about it. Genius!
This is endemic in every business. Dreadful interactive voice recognition on customer service calls, self-checkout kiosks at the grocery store, pumping your own gas, checking your own air pressure in tires, washing your own windshield, peeling little stubborn stickers off your fruit before you can eat it, big box stores where you can't find a single sales clerk, empying your shopping cart onto the conveyor belt, scanning products you want to purchase to get a price. Yes, this is the wonderful era of excellent "customer service." Not one of these "innovations" existed a mere 20 or 30 years ago.
Of course, it is really nice to get self-service money at the ATM and never have to set foot in a bank.
When you hear Greenspan, Bernanke, and other Wall Street shills effusing about "rising productivity", this is exactly what they're talking about -- making you do the work that employees used to do. Look for more Self Service Checkout lanes at Home Depot, Lowes, Safeway, etc.
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