I love flying SWA. Sure some things are small inconveniences but I've flown tons of flights with them and never had a problem. I usually avoid holiday travel (Thanksgiving/Christmas) mostly so I guess that's probably one reason I've never had issues. I'll continue to fly with them, and hopefully all the people that are pissed off at them (and pretend they will never fly with them again) will cause them to give the customers more deals in the next few months.
I hate SWA's boarding antics. I prefer to know where the hell I'm going to sit and that my companions will be there by me. Fortunately, most of my flying (West Coast/Hawaii) occurs on Alaska, Hawaiian or Delta. Much, much, much more enjoyable flying experience than any flights I've ever taken on SWA.
Watching n00bs freak out over southwest's boarding procedure is hilarious. It's so simple but for some reason it completely blows people's circuits. I don't really give a crap where I sit and I've never been in danger of not being seated next to my friend(s). Families are always seated together by policy as well. If it's that big of a headache, just pay the extra 15 bucks and get the automatic early check-in.
lol...I'm no SWA noob. Probably flown them a few dozen times in my life. Their boarding process sucks. It's always sucked...even when I was traveling alone or kidless. Whoever mentioned SWA being the Greyhound of the sky hit the nail on the head. At this point in my life, I'll spend the extra money for more legroom, arm room and an organized boarding process and not fly SWA. SWA's seating flat out sucks...along with their boarding shenanigans. I think the only airlines I've flown with worse seating...American.
If you don't like the seats that's one thing, but what if I told you that SWA's boarding process is actually the most efficient in the industry?
I had few complaints before this despite hearing about their cancellations out of the blue. Missed a very important time for my family and still haven’t been able to get ahold of them via phone email ..anything for 3 days now. Their phones are “disconnected” with a large corporation like that can’t make excuses for not speaking to customers for 3 days
I definitely understand individuals being pissed. It's a huge screw up and SWA does need to get their **** together.
This will certainly lead to changes in how they deliver crew, their scheduling software, and possibly even their point to point model (vs. hub and spoke). At some point, they were going to get too big to continue their regional-like operation decisions, and this was the straw that broke everything down.
Instead of a letter and number which no one ever follows, Southwest should just break down into 30 people boarding groups, first come first serve.
Isn't that what it is? Except the first come/first served happens 24 hours before the flight. It would be the exact same thing if you did it at the time of arriving to the airport (which is what they used to do when they used to have the plastic number cards they'd hand to you). You'd still end up with the exact same boarding process.... unless you're vouching for a system where people literally have to be first in line and stand there the entire time before boarding.
I think he's saying that the whole "A1 to A30" could be just simplified to "A". And then A31-60 is "B". So you do 30 at a time, but the order doesn't matter instead of trying to get everyone to figure out where they should line up (I never understand why this is so difficult for people!). I'm a little surprised to learn their technology is so outdated on the backend. The frontend of their website is so much easier/quicker to book/change/cancel flights than any other airline. I've always loved their mileage flights - simple pricing (miles have a flat value), you can cancel with no cost, etc. I regularly just book random cheap flights and decide last minute whether to take them or just cancel and book another. I complain so much about Delta/American/United's booking process. Though the other airlines' flight experience and check-in is certainly better, I was always impressed with SW technology - especially when Covid hit, they were miles ahead of everyone else giving refunds/vouchers/etc.
wouldn't that create more issues of a mass heard of people running to the front as soon as they call A group... or B group? I thought the efficiency of it was that the line gets formed in a set way. Again, I don't think this is actually anything that's a problem on their end. This, on the other hand, was a little jarring. Almost like they were doing some smoke and mirrors. And yes, they've always been consumer friendly, till it all fell apart and they decided to make the customer the enemy. But like other industries... if you over extend yourselves (which they have by adding new sites every year and taking over entire terminals), and you still try to use regional principles of point-to-point, and you try to get by with the bare minimum staff at a non-competitive wage... and then half your fleet is grounded because of weather... you're going to end up with a catastrophe. In the end, no airlines is perfect... and the one thing that really could have bit SW in the ass did so in a humongous way.
Thank you. Every other airline does it this way - only difference is Southwest doesn’t assign seating. Could it create more chaos? Maybe. But maybe it’s better than awkwardly standing there while someone with a B50 is standing between B1-B5 in front of you.
