Originally Posted by gloopy

One element of this is a great example of a growing pain as SWA becomes more legacy by the second.

Their quick turn mentality is ingrained into the fabric of their existance and part of that is giving massive authority to their FA's to be Drill Instructor-esque rulers of the cabin when it comes to pax compliance so they can get on their way. They're friendly and fun and tell jokes and do stand up comedy PA's and all that but you do not want to cost them an extra second on a turn or you will pay. They crack heads and the company backs them and the plan pushed out on time and they save a minute of block times a million flights a day every day = competitive productivity advantage.

Which is also why they taxi at takeoff power, beg for shortcuts in those rare instances when they don't get them anyway and bribe ATC to give them flagrant and highly illegal Most Favored Airline status as they're cleared out of sequence first out of a hold or someone else has to do a 270 so they can cut in from behind them to be number one for the numbers so they're 23 minutes early instead of only 22 minutes early.

But now they're growing up and becoming a big boy airline with big boy realities. Their secondary airport core business model is quietly being killed off because its outdated and ineffective. Their planes are getting bigger, their ops more complex, their turn times longer, their costs much, much higher and their competition far more dangerous.

But culture dies hard. Big group...non compliant for 2 minutes...kick em all off...power turn complete. Yeah, that dog don't hunt here no more. Welcome to the bigs.