I agree that if you travel for work, you can’t use WN regularly, their network doesn’t generally support that type of travel. WN is a low-cost carrier and does not directly compete with the majors and is often aimed at a different customer.
Can you explain this one to me? I’ve probably flown WN 50 times in my life and I haven’t experienced this. I feel like their seating system has become some type of boogeyman for people to point to when in practice it works just fine for what it is, a low-cost carrier.
Having said all that, the cancelations this past week are an absolute atrocity.
I just mean if your in say section 1 for seating (in not sure how they name their"zones". You have to get up there and in line before the others so you got first choice. Again I’ve only down sw 3 times. 2 times vacation and 1 time for work and that ended real fast. You pay x amount now to be 1-50 but then you go stand in line asap to be say number 7 to board to get the 7th pick. Right? That’s how i remember it. Last time i flew them was 5 years ago. My company tried making it a company wide carrier for us. We had no status and they don’t fly to alot of places we need to go so we were way late in boarding and got shit seats so didn’t last more than that one trip. Sorry if statement was inaccurate, just maybe not well typed.
You get assigned a group (A/B/C) and a number in that group when you check in. So you don’t have to fight over the spot in line. Obviously the higher the group/number the better chance you have of snagging a desirable seat. That being said, I did forget to check in one time (was at a refuge event when the 24 hour clock hit and totally spaced it), got a high c group number and still managed an aisle seat.
I’ve only flown SW a handful of times but honestly the boarding process makes sense after the first time.
I’ve also only flown by myself so I’ve never had to coordinate a group trying to sit together
They added pre assigned numbers within the boarding groups about 15 years ago.
It’s a very simple process.
If I check a bag (golf clubs) and therefore won’t be in a rush to get off the plane, I just hang back and have another drink at the bar and board in group C and look for a last row window seat.
I will add that these “inconveniences” are much easier to stomach when you’re saving your own money to fly WN rather than your employers money. If you travel for work it makes sense to fly a major. Once you fly a major for work, you’ll have so many points for personal use, it would never make sense to fly WN.
Just to be clear, this is wrong. Like if I’m B12, a bunch of people who are B1-B50 will start lining up before they even start boarding group A because they’re anxious or don’t know what they’re doing. I will hang back and finish my beer and when group A is just about finished boarding, I’ll cruise up to spot number 12 in the group B line. I’ll spend as little time as possible in line this way.
Live on the east coast and have flown SWA extensively over the years. I’ve truly had no issues with them, pretty smooth operation over here but maybe that’s due to a smaller operation with less destinations.
My wife and I got stuck in Denver in that October 21 meltdown, southwest wanted to rebook us like 5 days later. Just rented a car and drove home to Chicago. That was the 2nd time in 6 months they got us stuck somewhere, but they did give us a 250 dollar voucher….
Now if I have to fly southwest , it’s never on a critical travel leg of the trip or have a backup refundable ticket on a different airline or a one way rental car pre booked.
Not only is southwest now routinely more expensive than Delta, which is completely bonkers, it doesn’t show up on any searches. Also, I think I am fully converted to team “just charge for checked bags.” This policy kills carry on guy (me).
Same. I never flew THAT much but I was taking 10-12 trips a year for a bit and never had any trouble with them. The boarding process is pretty nice, planes were clean, etc. It’s not exactly a premium experience but it gets the job done. I took a Jetblue flight this year for our honeymoon and the difference was night and day, but we also had to pay for checked luggage and would have had to pay more for better seats, etc.
Southwest has never participated in the GDS (Global Distribution System) for fare searching. All tickets are sold through their website or ticket office (if such things still exist). Partly due to ego (drive traffic to their site), and part due to their shitty outdated booking software which is incompatible will all other airline software. It also explains why Southwest’s website is pure and utter garbage. The lack of GDS participation is also why they can’t rebook passengers on other airlines easily during IRREG ops. Chickens coming home to roost on a shitty airline.
Just cancelled my SWA flight from PGH to Boston for New Years…system error when cancelling but now my flight doesn’t show up in my trips (so it is cancelled?) and the flight credit never hit my account/no confirmation email sent.
Their servers are absolutely jacked right now, not good! Re-Booked with JetBlue for a non-stop upgrade at good times, so happy I pulled the trigger just in case with everything going on.
How is Southwest the only airline with this widespread of issues? My mom was deep in the airline industry before retiring and she was telling me it was going to be a nightmare. The massive cancellations before the holidays, the holiday travel volume and ongoing labor shortage in addition to federal regulations were never going to allow make up of all these flights in a short period of time.
There just isn’t enough bodies to call in to work.
Sure, lots of logistical successes happen to keep them running. But overall the US-based carriers are pitiful compared to international ones like Turkish, Singapore, Virgin, etc.
Short version: all other carriers have moved to hub-and-spoke models for most flights. Delta, for example, has Atlanta on one side or another of half their flights. Makes it easy to move staff & planes around to adjust to weather.
Southwest runs the old “line” model, in which an aircraft and its staff has a designated route of 3-6 stops and no “hubs”. If one of those stops has bad weather, all following stops are impacted. Multiply by bad weather everywhere and you get the picture.