This is going to sound like an ad, but I exclusively fly SW domestically. As noted, they used to look like a worse value but only because of the way competition handled fees. Couple this with the standard rewards program and I think SW is a steal. Did you know that SW is also the only domestic airline to have never filed bankruptcy? I’m glad to see the rest of the world being forced to compete more honestly. I’m sad to see that my convenient flights might get a little more crowded, but oh well!
Southwest is my favorite airline for domestic US travel. Two free checked bags by default is amazing. I also personally like the no assigned seats, and no first class.
I also had an experience with a delayed bag once, which took about an hour to come out on the carousel. It was long enough that I went to the help desk to get help and potentially report the bag as lost. I got a 300 dollar travel credit, and my bag turned up shortly after.
> You may contact us for a refund of the cost of additional seating after travel. If you prefer not to purchase an additional seat in advance , you have the option of purchasing just one seat and then discussing your seating needs with the Customer Service Agent at the departure gate. If it’s determined that a second (or third) seat is needed, you’ll be accommodated with a complimentary additional seat.
I never flew SW, can you or someone explain what the problem is with unassigned seats (what makes it a zoo)? I've used long distance trains and buses and it has been fine.
They don't charge extra for assigned seats. Instead, you pick your seat by sitting in it. Which means you need to board earlier. Boarding order is assigned by the order in which you check in. To do that, you get the Southwest app and check in the moment the notification pops up on your phone. If you do that, you board ahead of everyone else. Free of charge.
If you believe paying paying extra fees for every little thing constitutes order over chaos, well then maybe you should fly another airline and pay their fees. Personally I prefer Southwest's up-front pricing model. I just tap the check-in button when it pops up on my phone and board ahead of everyone else, thus avoiding the so-called zoo of people at the back who haven't figured it out yet.
The first time I flew Southwest I immediately saw that boarding first gets you a better seat. So I asked them, how do you board first? And they told me. I boarded first from then on.
You're already behind if you're hitting the check-in button because of how connecting flights work. Passengers can check in 24h ahead of the earliest flight on their ticket, which is >24h ahead of the flight you're on. It's usually not a problem being A20 vs A15, but it can be much worse if you're joining the last leg of a popular connection.
How do they enforce that people who checked in earlier get to board earlier? Almost every other airline has "groups" where in theory, Group 1 boards while everyone else waits, then Group 1&2 are invited, and so on. But in reality, everyone just dogpiles the gate when Group 1 starts, regardless of their group, and nobody actually checks the group number or enforces anything.
They create a single-file queue, with what is supposed to be a strict linear sorting. Instead of a group, you get a boarding number from A1 through C60. There's some flexibility in this, generally most people don't mind #44 going before #40, but you won't be able to line up or board after person #11 if your boarding card says #56. The gate agent will make you go to your correct place in line. Since it's a single-aisle plane, they run everyone through a single ticket reader, and thus have a point of enforcement.
Yes, and they also have these pylons next to the gate, with numbers on them that are for forming the line. During boarding, everyone stands next to the pylon with their number on it and thus the line is formed. Southwest gates are unusual in this way. No other airline has these pylons at their gates.
I remember one gate agent who was unusually vocal about everyone obeying the rules. It was pretty funny actually.
How does that work for people traveling in groups such as couples or families? The reason that airlines have assigned seating is that people want to know before they get on the plane that they’ll be seated together.
Especially for families you don’t want your kid sitting next to some random person because you missed a notification on an app and ended up boarding last when only middle seats are left
If you board in later groups (i.e. not one of the first 100 or so people) you are essentially stuck waiting in a line in a cramped isle for people to put their bags up and are likely to be relegated to a middle seat.
Though that does presume being ready to board at precisely that moment while traveling with small children. In my experience I can expect that to happen about half the time.
If you are clearly a family, and miss family boarding, I believe they'll let you board whenever you're ready. As long as you get on sometime in the "B" group, you should find an empty row or two at the back of the plane.
Nothing forces them to charge extra for seat assignments!
There are still a couple that include free seat assignments (within your booking class, and without introducing a fake "basic economy" class without assigned seats), and that's by far my preferred seating model.
I almost always fly SW, and it's my least favorite flying experience. Why do I fly it often then? It's not the cost, I am rarely paying out of pocket for the flights, as they're typically work related. It's just simple - they are my only option for direct flights for most of the travel I do that doesn't involve me driving 2 extra hours to go to the larger LAX airport.
Might be the case in some parts of the US, but Delta and sometimes Alaska tend to be price competitive with SW, and the flying experience is leagues better (imo).
Best perk on SW is the companion pass. Some well timed credit card sign ups and a few flights and you can have a companion fly free with you for almost 2 years. Especially nice as SW flies to Hawaii.
Credit card sign up and spend count towards earning the pass, one trick make a large tax payment with your cards to boost the points earned. Worth the fees you will pay.
For the domestic airline, no that's not true, theres other airlines in the USA that have not declared bankruptcy, off the top of my head Alaska Airlines never has alongside several others. this seems to be a great, yet sadly non-exhaustive list: https://www.airlines.org/dataset/u-s-bankruptcies-and-servic...
I look at Southwest as an outlier, I don't mind them, but I don't really look for them, they used to fly to inconvinent airports.
I have a SW story that has made me dedicate my business to them moving forward:
I had a trip to Austin where i was mid-flight when they cancelled all flights there a year or so ago. I was headed to Sacramento as a connection from PDX and when I landed I went to gate agent to let them know and they were already befuddled by other customers as everything east of colorado at that point was a mess, somehow though they found flights that would get me to Austin later that day that had not been cancelled as the forecast was to thaw, and all seemed good. Luckily i had only a carry on so no baggage worries. I just had to get to SNA then off to Austin. So i took the flight, with free drinks and internet now, to SNA and I land and cancelled again in mid air. So I'm thinking what the heck now. I get with the agent who was very understanding and we found a path to go see my parents instead in AZ (i figured since i was this far and hadn't seen them in a few years at their city might as well). They let me divert my destination for no charge, I did have to fly back up to San Jose and then from there to PHX. It was my longest domestic travel experience ever (5am-4pm) but every step the flight attendants, the pilots, the gate agents, everyone was awesome. After SNA I got free drinks, internet, and in the first boarding group from there. I somehow made it to PHX before 4pm. I was blown away at the compassion shown and the respect given even after some passengers blew up at some of these folks. They reset with me and I showed them a modicum of respect and they helped me out immensely. Thier people at every stop seemed to really enjoy their job when dealing with decent passengers and even the not so decent ones they owuld put up with and move along with a smile.
“As noted, they used to look like a worse value but only because of the way competition handled fees.”
They have consistently been by far the worse value from either of the airports in my area even after paying additional fees on other airlines such as checked baggage fees.
> but only because of the way competition handled fees
Southwest treats all its customers the way the big three treat their most frequent fliers. I am loyal to Delta and also never pay baggage fees or change fees or have miles expire. The lounges are free, which means free food and drink from one airport to the other. I can get a human on the phone within 60s, have had a car help with gate-to-gate transfers when a delay (not my fault) caused a close call while I was flying with a pet and had them help when I needed to fly back from Mexico without my (stolen) passport. For those privileges, I spend five figures with them a year and quite a bit more on their branded credit card.
My mom flew Delta recently. Despite me booking her into a quite-nice set (albeit not front-cabin, my bad), she had an atrocious--almost condescending--experience all the way through. Surprise fees on check-in. No help at the gate. Expensive restaurants or fast food in the terminals, nothing in between. (Granted, the advantages of Delta having never lost one of my bags nor cancelled a flight for bewildering reasons extended to her.)
Going forward, if I weren't buying a front-cabin ticket for her, I'd try to have her fly Southwest.
Southwest has its faults, but they're far and away the most human-friendly and least-BS domestic airline in the US. The price is the price and you get reasonable accommodations even at the base fare. If your Southwest credits/vouchers expire, you can talk to an actual person who'll extend it by six months after expiration even if you don't have status. It doesn't feel bad giving Southwest your business.
Maybe other companies shouldn't completely optimize away the humanity in their services. Maybe have some core values beyond "make number go up."
> Maybe other companies shouldn't completely optimize away the humanity in their services
Plenty of fliers just want the cheapest flight. (Some, like me, see longer flights as mini in-day vacations.) Having a competitive market means we get to have both: a cheap, inhuman option; a mid-priced human option; and a high-priced, human and luxurious one.
This 1000%. It’s even more true and viable in any industry saturated with competition that is married to the opposite standards. Yet here I am, simply baffled that someone else tried to argue that not having declared bankruptcy before could be a bad thing.
Any “boarding upgrade” on Southwest is contingent on you being present early in the boarding process and scrambling for a good seat. If you get to the gate just before departure, your “upgrade” is worthless.
On other airlines you have an assigned seat, so you can just sit in the airport and board last if you want and you still have your seat. This matters if you are running late one day. It also means you have to allow extra time when flying Southwest, as you can’t use the boarding time as buffer time, at least not if you care what seat you’re in.
Other than garbage airlines like Frontier, I have never had reasons to complain about any American airlines that much. Competition is so fierce that they all are pretty bad in my opinion.
My United Tariff is up to $400. That is, I add $400 to whatever their price is when I'm shopping for tickets. That's how much more I'm willing to pay anyone else to avoid flying United.
What is the signal being derived never having declared bankruptcy? Doesn't that mean, comparatively, they're extracting more money from customers than the rest of the industry and spending less on things like maintenance? Both of those sound like bad things to me.
If you buy a plane ticket for the future, in a bankruptcy, you become an unsecured creditor of the airline.
That means the airline could have taken your money, spent it, and the bankruptcy court can say that they don't actually have to honor your ticket because it falls below the line of the things the airline has money to actually pay people back for. And then you have to go buy another ticket on another airline.
> If you buy a plane ticket for the future, in a bankruptcy, you become an unsecured creditor of the airline.
Unless you pay for it with a credit or debit card, which probably accounts for pretty much every ticket sold in the US.
In other words, this is simply not true. The airline's acquiring bank bears the bulk of the risk for almost all flights (except for those purchased extremely far out, i.e. much more than a year, and some other edge cases).
Even worse, you can get caught with no return flight. In late 2001, I was flying back home to Dallas from Prague, connecting in Brussels. And the airline I was on, Sabena, declared bankruptcy the very day of the flights.
I got lucky, if your flight left before 8am you were rebooked on a different airline. After 8? You were out of luck and on your own. My flight had been scheduled for 7:50.
Balance that with no change fees, free bags, companion pass, and flight credits that do not expire.
When I travelled a lot, I would fly Southwest the first part of the year to earn the companion pass. Once earned I would fly Delta or United, who ever was cheaper.
As a consumer it is nice to have a choice and competition. Seems like the other large carriers raise fees and degrade the travel experience in tandem.
> Balance that with no change fees, free bags, companion pass, and flight credits that do not expire
Delta provides each of those at its higher frequent-flier levels. Plus free food and drink at the airport and in the air, premium seats, et cetera. If you're a very frequent flier, the majors have a better product. If you're a middlingly-frequent flier, or someone who flies a short, cheap route frequently, Southwest.
I didn't know they weren't listed on flight aggregator services and I almost certainly did not consider Southwest when flying to FL for this very reason.
Seems to me that Southwest are learning the hard way that not being competitive and transparent with consumers about their pricing is bad for business.
I don't know how you would have come to that conclusion, after reading the article? It says pretty plainly that the new government regulations, which force airlines to show all "additional" charges alongside the ticket price, means that Southwest's bundled price will now SHOW as cheaper, rather than showing as a larger base price (but less without the added additional 'baggage check' fees, or whatever) than other airlines.
Basically, they took a principled stand to not show their prices in place where it would LOOK worse (without being worse) and they have stuck to it. The world changed to be more in alignment with their price honesty; they didn't cave to showing their prices unfairly in an effort to be more "competitive" or "transparent".
> they took a principled stand to not show their prices in place where it would LOOK worse (without being worse)
I bet they weren't too unhappy about not paying an agent/referral fee to these "price comparison sites" (that are really often travel agents themselves, or are at least getting a commission from those or the airline directly).
For related reasons, Easyjet or Ryanair (I forgot which one) was not available for booking through the regular GDSes for the longest time, which made them unavailable for booking through traditional travel agents not directly integrating with their proprietary inventory system. I bet that was as much about not wanting to pay the incumbents' fees as much as it was about being "modern API forward".
Every commodity service like flights needs to be available through a standard API. We need to maximize the impact of market forces, via price discovery and then competition, for the benefit of passengers.
"principled", in this context, meaning "they have rules that they have abided by", rather than "a set of rules that are morally just or otherwise generally appreciable for their merits".
Not saying SW wasn't benefiting from the arrangement, or that they weren't playing coy for selfish reasons. Just saying that they had rules and stuck to them, rather than acquiescing to consumer forces as OP suggested.
Google flights has had the no checked bags allowed icon for years. And still shows it, I was originally afraid the government decided every ticket price has to include a checked bag, as that what your comment sounded like.
>I don't know how you would have come to that conclusion, after reading the article? It says pretty plainly that the new government regulations, which force airlines to show all "additional" charges alongside the ticket price, means that Southwest's bundled price will now SHOW as cheaper, rather than showing as a larger base price (but less without the added additional 'baggage check' fees, or whatever) than other airlines.
You said this. I said that's how Google Flights has been all along. So the full verbose question would be "What changed that made Southwest decide to allow their flights to appear on Google flights?"
It doesn't look to be simply 'government regulations'.
>It doesn't look to be simply 'government regulations'.
As evidenced by what? Your own summary makes it seem as if the only changed factor was the government regulations, so why wouldn't that be the "what changed"?
But to be more charitable: if you would like to know what - exactly - changed, I would suggest googling it? I'm honestly not trying to be snarky; what possible information could I have that you couldn't get easier by googling it? The thing you are asking about is a point of fact. The law is written text, and the changes are clearly defined. In my experience, whenever I don't understand the finer effects of a new law, I've found that there are a ton of nuances and complications and party interests that make the outcome more understandable to me. But I have never, in my life, had those nuances and complications made more clear or obviously true by way of a response from some forum commenter. It has ALWAYS been by seeking out the information, myself, from direct sources. So that's my suggestion to you, if you're earnestly asking.
But, either way, this is about all I have to say on the subject. Carry on as you will, and have a good one!
As someone who's often flown southwest exactly for that reason, now I'm a little worried the "secret is out..." though they've had enough issues over the last few years that I should probably be happy they'll just get more business generally.
It certainly appears as a principled stance now, but they opted out of OTAs back when any ticket on any airline got you two checked bags.
They didn't want to be easily compared back then on a level playing field. So it's a bit surprising that they want to be easily compared now, but the industry is also different.
Most likely if there was a principle, it was that they didn't want to pay Sabre to be in it, especially since Sabre was part of American Airlines until 2000.
Understood, but trusting Google to do something (in perpetuity) that it is not legally obligated to do is a hard sell to shareholders wondering why you would let your prices be misrepresented (in relation to other airline tickets) in that way.
The UI displaying the SW price for two checked bags next to the Delta price for zero checked bags is the issue. it's like comparing "the cheapest Mac laptop vs the cheapest windows laptop" vs "the cheapest Mac laptop vs equivalently spec'd windows laptop", and not trusting consumers or the price comparison UI to know the difference.
I certainly appreciate the effort as valiant, but the commenter responded to a generalized summary of the issue with anecdotal tunnel-vision about their pet issue, completely ignoring the context (an entire US law was passed - no small feat - to fix an issue ne is insisting doesn't actually exist) and the other types of issues that contribute to the misrepresentation of prices (checked bags aren't the only 'hidden fee').
In response to "you can see how THIS is a misrepresentation, right?" they said "actually, I've never had that problem, so..."
At some point, you have to recognize who and what you are dealing with and cut bait. But, hey, YMMV! Godspeed, if you're willing, I suppose!
If I look up a price for Delta compared against a price for Southwest and the Delta price is cheaper, that is a "representation".
If I go to Delta to buy the ticket, but cannot actually purchase the ticket for the price quoted (which was the problem), then there has been a misrepresentation of the actual cost of a Delta ticket.
Compounding that, if the actual price I pay for a Delta ticket is more than the comparison price for a Southwest ticket that would have allowed me to get the same fare, then the comparison is a misrepresentation. The comparison is no longer apples to apples. That's not a problem with Southwest having an issue with pricing model, that's a problem with the comparison sites not being forced to show comparisons between like products. That comparison, between unlike products, is a misrepresentation, if a reasonable person could believe that they were looking at a comparison of like products.
I'm not going to belabor the point further; the law was changed for exactly this type of nonsense. It's a misrepresentation.
>If I go to Delta to buy the ticket, but cannot actually purchase the ticket for the price quoted (which was the problem), then there has been a misrepresentation of the actual cost of a Delta ticket.
The price I see on Google flights has always been the price I pay on Delta.com
If I pick 2 checked bags on Google flights, then Google flights shows me the price for 2 checked bags with Delta.
I'm aware of plenty of airlines who are not transparent with their fees and are often advertised as much cheaper than some of my preferred airlines.
I don't trust the price I'm quoted until I get to checkout, but if I don't even SEE them in my list of flights to compare, they're not likely to be a consideration.
A lot of flight aggregators also support filtering in/out airlines and I often do this with those who are sneaky about their fees.
> Seems to me that Southwest are learning the hard way that not being competitive and transparent with consumers about their pricing is bad for business.
As the other comments said, that's highly doubtful. Also, you have to balance that against the fact that for many people (myself included) Southwest was always the first site I checked, specifically because they "trained" me to know I always had to go to their site, and that for many destinations they were by far the best option for me due to price and flight times, even given their "cattle call" seating.
I suspect that the commission that Google presumably gets for each referral played a much larger role than a desire to not be transparent. Google Flights is not just a search engine – they get paid by the airlines, as far as I know!
As far as Southwest being listed on OTAs is concerned: I'm pretty sure they always have been, or I wouldn't have bought a ticket with them a while ago. They're just apparently not on all of them.
I’ve always had them at the bottom of my list because I like to pick my seat in advance.
I also used to think Google flight search would show the lowest prices, but I recently saved a few hundred dollars by buying on Expedia. Same everything, just cheaper than even the airline’s website.
I fly them exclusively in the US because of two free checked bags, no change fees, and anytime I have had a life event that required them extend non corporate grace (held the plane while trying to get to someone dying and I would’ve missed the door by a few minutes), they have been patient and humane. I’ll fly them until I die or they go out of business. Some brand value and corporate values are real.
Southwest Airlines (SW) has still not made an investment in their scheduling and operations software and infrastructure. They will have more operational failures in the future if say a huge store system forces to many flights to be rescheduled. For something so critical to business continuity I find it astounding how little SW has done in that regard. SW also has lobbied alot to derail high speed rail in Texas. Although I am sure all airlines have done that to some degree.
How do you know what Southwest is investing in internally? Sounds like a large problem to solve that will take time. I haven't seen any info about this.
Also, yeah all companies lobby against competition.
I've flown Southwest a few times out of necessity and it's always been a worse experience for me. I don't like the "hunger games" aspect of seating... I'd rather have the seat pre-selected and relax during boarding. I've also found it to be more expensive generally for the routes I fly.
Everyone has their own preferences, but I wonder is there a tangible advantage to flying Southwest to those that prefer it?
I used to give preference to Southwest for cross-country (US) flights, partly because of availability on particular routes, but over other direct flights because of the boarding experience. For $15-20 (not sure what it is now) I could pay for the automated check-in and be near-guaranteed a seat in the A group that was better, for cheaper, than trying to get an equivalent seat at an airline where they were picked ahead of time.
That makes sense if you prefer to be close to the front/exit for quick deplaning.
I tend to just relax during both boarding/de-boarding since it's only a few minutes difference anyway and the effort/stress of trying to move quickly outweighs the few minutes savings. If the seat is pre-selected, I can simply wait for the line to go away and board last without standing for 10m. It seems to me that most people rush to board first even with pre-selected seating (perhaps optimizing for space in the overhead bins)
If you have a connecting flight with a short layover, is the exception where I want to be right near the exit. So I guess it's more of a preference thing
> is there a tangible advantage to flying Southwest
for those in Dallas, the trip to Lovefield instead of DFW is super convenient. playing "hunger games" as you put it to find a seat vs traveling to the larger airport can be worth it especially if traveling alone.
there's also free checked bags compared to the other lower price carriers.
the biggest negative is you might be flying on a MAX
There are some minor advantages: checked bags are free, and canceling a flight for future credit has long been free on all tickets - once this became common among other airlines, they changed their policy to make the credit never expire to stay ahead of the competition (and allow transferring it to another person for some types of tickets).
It depends on the route obviously but I find Southwest prices to be comparable to other non low cost airlines like Delta, American, etc. The few occasions I got bit by the $200 change fee on the others has made me consider Southwest much more. I refuse to fly the super cheap airlines.
Besides the 2 bags you get for free, the ability to rebook whenever you want and pay the difference / get a credit is so incredibly useful. I am not super well-versed on airline policies, but last time I looked, I think they were the only US airline that did this (at least for the economy class level of tickets).
One neat trick: you can rebook your exact same itinerary if you see it cheaper and get the difference as a credit (for the Wanna Get Away class fares; if you booked with the pricier ones, you'll get it back as a refund to your credit card).
Spirit just dropped change fees entirely, and the other 6 biggest airlines have dropped change fees except for their basic economy equivalents (normal economy is changeable for free.) But for checked bags they all still really want you to pay $95 annually for their cobranded credit cards.
Now that Spirit dropped them, I wouldn’t be surprised if change fees get scrapped across the board soon given the upcoming requirement to advertise them upfront.
> Southwest even sues websites that display its schedules and fares without authorization
Why does Southwest even have any jurisdiction here? It seems like they won a preliminary case, but don't we have established president that scraping websites is legal, thanks to hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn?
What was interesting is that Southwest has been part of GDS allowing agents and corporate travel bookers to compare fares. Always seemed consumer unfriendly.
Huh, I had no idea they weren't listed on these sites. I'd generally heard good things about them but they didn't really 'exist' as an option for me since I never saw a flight from them available. Wonder how many times I'd have chosen them if I knew/remembered they existed on a given route
4 reasons I've avoided Southwest: 1) Not in Google Flights 2) Not seatback charging 3) More expensive (for my flights) 4) Boarding procedure . Now that the first 2 are fixed, I'll give them more consideration.
- Climate change: carbon footprint nearly 44% greater than a single occupancy vehicle but multiplied over thousands of miles
- Monetized misery with short seat pitches, junk fees, and preferential treatment with $$$
- Inconsistent, sometimes terrible customer service (About 10 years ago, I was stuck at Heathrow but Virgin Atlantic once showed me how to and let me use their booking terminal directly to find a flight on any carrier. They definitely had customer service.)
- Regular inconveniences like endless gate changes (AA pulled this 11x in 6 hours to me at DFW)
- Sketchy maintenance practices like offshoring MRO
