Originally Posted by
Sink r8
You must be quite old. I can't remember anyone in my lifetime seriously laughing at Southwest (the business model). We may have laughed at Southwest (the pilots), or Southwest (the airborne comedy show), or their "Burbank fuel-hedge", and spent a lot of time asking whether they know the difference between a taxi and a take-off roll, but I don't think we've underestimated the model. Ever.
If anything the industry and the public are collectively guilty of buying enough into the hype, that they made the legend true by running scared at every opportunity to fight.
I'm not old, very junior actually. But I know what the old guys feel about SWA because I hear it all the time. Sadly, most of these guys have no idea how big SWA has become.
Another thing I can't stand, whenever RA speaks ... or other managers for that reason, they never include SWA in our "competitive set" or airlines. I'm tired of hearing how we are doing against UAL, AA, USAir, and CAL. I want to know how we're doing against the big elephant in the room that is SWA.