He has some valid criticisms. I don't bother to non-rev anymore for the most part. I buy tickets. Since my kids are over 6 (but young enough where I don't want them sitting between two strangers) I pay for early bird as well. It always works out for us to sit together as a family except with a plane change and the first leg is running late. So now I've paid extra for a good boarding position, but due to circumstances beyond my control as a passenger I'm boarding last and stuck with whatever is open. Not cool. If I was a business select guy it would really **** me off. That or paying to get on as business select only to see 50 people in seats up front already because it's a through flight and/or people are scamming the preboard process. In my opinion as a customer it's time for assigned seats. Added bonus as an employee of not having to listen to the "look to your left, look to your right" pa on repeat.

 

Assigned seats aren't going to speed up the turn when we're still waiting on ramp to load bags for 20 min, or checking bags because still no one has figured out checked bags are free, or FAs who got a plane swap who cant leave other plane until their relief get there, which are late, then walk a mile in denver to their new gate.
but yes its obvious its because we aren't playing music in the jet bridge

 

Maybe it's just a fluke in my survey of one, but it sure seems like the company is reducing the number of through flights. In the last month or two I have seen a lot more passengers that were on my inbound flight, reboarding the same airplane for our next flight (to include an entire college soccer team!) I haven't seen anything official out of the company on this, but it would definitely help with A-lister/Biz Select boarding satisfaction, and also the problem of FAs held hostage to thru pax on the plane.

 

Something was posted on one of the flight attendant forums a month or so ago....

"System-Wide Through-Flight Changes

How we approach through-flights on a system level also has changed beginning in the March base schedule... Moving forward, through-flights will only be allowed when the turn time is LESS THAN the -800 minimum connect time in connection Stations. For example, if the minimum -800 connect time is 40 minutes in a Station, only through-flights with 35 minutes or less in turn times will be allowed.

This change aims to create easier crew connections by reducing flights where crews need to monitor through-passengers until the new crew arrives."

 

Well there you go. Thanks SWAFA!

 

The change won’t be due to turn times it will added revenue generation opportunities.

 

Really? That's what you get out of that? I've been flying probably longer than you have been living, and I'm still at it.

I don't like asking for favors and I will ask for a can if I really want more. I am just surprised that the beverage, snack cart thing has never made it to SWA.

I will say that your crews are very nice people. I can think of a few airlines where that is not the case (cough, AA, cough).

 

Add to this the limiting of liability for canceled flights while on the turn for a through flight. Not a huge impact, but with the ever changing pax refund rules, they are probably only having to give back half the fare now, instead of the whole segment

 

Exactly, y’all can’t do quick turns anymore so for the love of all things holy get rid of the cattle call.

 

Uassigned seating with one cabin class has worked. And worked well for almost fifty years. Their finances speak for itself. It was the most profitable airline in history with better margins than all the lagacies. And that is with no premium seating. You don't buy back six billion in stock without sufficient free cash flow and good margins. Post COVID world has forced their hands. Customers flying habits and tastes have changed. They are willing to upcharge what ever the airline offers. Can't squeeze any more money out of the product. As somebody else has pointed out, this is a revenue problem. Nothing will change with turn times IF they go to assign seating. I think the easy thing to do would be just to give up the open cabin and do assign seating. No costs required for that. The harder part(they already admitted this on the CC) is will SWA customers want to upcharge for something else. Stay tuned till Sept investors day for that.

I would highly recommend listening to the pod cast the SRC put out. 4500 flights day this summer. Shoulder flying coming back, with reduced flying days on Tues, Wed and Sat. Thats not a good recipe for the high dense trips that the summer usually brings. Wait for the red-eyes. Can't wait till they try to reinvent the wheel on that.