allesgut

Oh my God, I've been treated awesome EVERYtime I JS on AA

SWA gate agents are generally good but I've run into gate agents that are as bad as anywhere.
And you cannot use AAconnect as your baseline example for getting treated poorly.

flyguy81

That's the codeshare I was operating during all my AA interactions so I've got no other example to go off of. All I know is the gate agents in ORD and STL suck....LGA wasn't much better, marginally so.

Tango Uniform

Those that think my original post was a "jab", it wasn't inter as such. To those who said it "trolling" it wasn't intended that way. I was just stating that the gate agents and flight attendants don't seem to be like they were. They were fun. Seemed to enjoy their jobs. Not all of them are like that. I'll watch some of them during boarding and they look at the passengers like they are the spawn of Satan. You would never see that during Herbs involvement.

The pilot group goes above an beyond. We all know Southwest is the official sponsor of Take Grandma to the Airport. I've seen so many pilots wheel passengers down the jetway. They go above and beyond.

Things like what the Southwest pilots do set them apart from other carriers. The morale and people at Southwest set them apart from the drones of other carriers. It seems like they are losing that. They are becoming like other carriers. Losing the identity that made Southwest great.

shoelu

Many seem to assert that any problem associated with today's Southwest can be linked to Herbs departure. While I agree he was a visionary CEO with an uncanny ability to think outside of the box, it was a different airline when he stepped down as CEO in 2001.

Many of the changes at SWA can be attributed to nothing more than growth. In 2001 SWA employed 30,000. In 2016 Southwest has more than 52,000 employees. Maintaining any semblance of a "family" feeling becomes progressively more difficult as an airline nearly doubles in size.

Add in the complexity of introducing large congested airports and a limited international route structure and SWA begins to experience some of the maddening delays and problems inherent to a larger and more complex system.

I don't believe SWA has lost that luving feeling but I think most can understand that Southwest will begin to share more issues troubling the legacies as time marches on.

flyguy81

That's a fair assessment. I think the protracted labor strife the last 3-4 years probably had a lot to do with it. Now that contracts are signed hopefully we can get back to the way it was (even if just a little bit...it'll never be the way it was in the 90's)

GingerDan

As a current SWA employee, I agree with this statement here the most. It's easy to hate the man at the top and say that he's no Herb. Well, he's not but you can't blame everything on him. The airline has been growing like crazy. I was hired 5 years ago, and there are employee numbers (for the entire company) that are more than 30 thousand higher than mine. It becomes more difficult to manage and our IT and scheduling departments haven't been able to keep up. We're having meltdowns, people are being rerouted on the most ridiculous trips, and our overall trip quality has suffered. We're seeing longer days, more ground time, and shorter overnights.

Contracts. Our ground personnel passed their TA at roughly 51%-49%. The pilots had a decent TA. The flight attendants TA passed at very small percentage with little to no changes. There is an extreme dissatisfaction with the FA union to the point that a recall has been started. There seems to be a big fight going on between the company and unions. Some unions won, some didn't. That could be a cause of some of the grumpiness.

When you are treated like family, are encouraged to have fun, and have a very long leash, you are a happier person. When you are treated more like an employee and have a short leash, you're less likely to be as happy and friendly. Just my observations.

Fly safe,

~ Dan

NYC Pilot

At the end of the day, it's a metal tube with a certain paint job and we are led to believe there is such a thing as an "airline family" .. It's just a business and we are employees who do a certain job n get paid.. You want a friend, get a dog or a cat.

Bootleg

I never ran into any at MIA,LAX, or DFW either.

Bootleg

Every Southwest pilot who ever jumpseated w/me couldn't have been more courteous or professional. It was always a pleasure to fly those guys home. While it's true-we didn't have much to offer on the SAAB, other than a nice safe ride home w/soft drink and pretzels, we were happy to do it.

You older a/a pricks could learn something here.

dawgdriver

For the most part, SWA HR must have their #hit together when it comes to hiring pilots. After years of jump-seating, I have yet to run in to a better class of people. Always helpful and cheerful.