SWA Morale
 

I hate sounding negative. What is going on with Southwest? You all had great gate agents, and flight attendants. The level of service has really gone downhill in the last few years. The morale and attitudes of the people are not the same. The equipment is dirty. The multiple safety issues? What happened?

Gary Kelly happened.

You definitely shouldn't apply there. Really. Horrible place. Will be shut down by next year.

Who mentioned anything about applying? Just wondering why going from great service to not so great? I didn't think that American would ever give better service than Southwest especially after the US Airways merger. They are. The culture at Southwest has changed.

He's got a valid point. Seems like there's more bad apples now than there was in the past. Saying that, the majority that I encounter are great.

It's what happens when bean counters try to run an airline.

That's laughable.

I've never been treated as terribly by another airline as I have by AA. Gate agents are rude and refuse to help you out. Pilots are great to talk to but generally won't go to bat for you if you're trying to jumpseat/non-rev since the gate agent rules the roost.

Bigger than their britches

Maybe the problem is like an empty spice rack: no Herb. ;)

Whoa
Parker wouldn't even believe that while blitzed.

It ain't Herb's airline anymore that's for sure. I also believe that the real sticks in the mud are the hold overs from the "fly it like a 200" era and not the new blood coming on the property.

Really? I jump on SWA all the time, and am never treated ANYTHING but wonderfully. Much of the time I'm pre-boarded, treated like gold by the flight attendants, and when I'm up in the actual have great conversations with the pilots. When I purchase tickets for my girlfriend (no WAY she can get anywhere standby these days on my own passes), I always buy them on SWA and they treat her equally as well. Sure, there are always a few surly folks at every airline, but as a general rule I find SWA to be one of the very best. I wish we could treat them as well as they treat us when they come over to visit us at UAL

Just as a public FYI.... how do you get pre-boarded as an offline JS? The ONLY time the ATL agents let you do this is if it looks like you'll be on the actual seat and then they let you go down and check in, otherwise I've asked a couple of times and I get the "back of the line you little ingrate" look and of course that's where I go and patiently wait for my free ride. Not complaining but just curious how you pull the early board off with the gate agents?

Why do you constantly feel the need to justify the fact you're not at a legacy by making little jabs at them? You enjoy SWA. Cool. We get it. Good for you. SWA is a good airline.

But to say 15k AA pilots won't go to bat for you is nonsense. Every pilot group has their 5%. SWA does too.

Are we counting the original post as a jab or....

In 10+ yrs flying AA Connection I can count on 1 hand the number of times a AA pilot refused to push until all the jumpseaters/nonrevs were on board. More times than I can count I've had AA guys try and circumvent the priority listing to get ahead of express guys on their own equipment with the excuse being, "I'm mainline and you're not".

The ONLY times I was treated as an equal on an AA plane was when the crew was TWA. They'd put you in 1st regardless of what seat the nAAzi gate agent gave you on a wide open flight, make sure you were taken care of by the FA's with food, and would make sure they didn't leave without you if they knew you were waiting to get on.

That's not to say there's not nAAtive pilots that aren't top notch....I just never ran into very many of them in ORD or LGA. Don't even get me started on the AAgents in STL...

Don't know about ATL, but in the places I have used SWA jump seats I just stand near the podium by the gate and they almost always wave me down when they get done boarding the wheelchairs and the deadheading Southwest crews. LAS, ONT, SAN, SMF, AUS, SAT, PHL are the stations I have used.
To the original posters assertion about SWA morale, I agree with the guy a couple of posts prior: these are some of the nicest people in the airline industry period. Gate agents, cabin crew, pilots included.

Some stations are good. BUR, OAK stand out. Some are bad LAX, ATL in my experience. There is one strange dude in OAK that makes you board in your group. When i see him working the flight I get a Cockpit. Then have to get his attention to board. This is at the most commuter friendly airport in the whole system.

There are bad apples everywhere. But to say that AA has better service, you must have either:

a) encountered an outlier phenomenal AA service.
b) encountered an outlier bad service from SWA - again far from the norm.
c) trolling.

I will say that some people carry sour grapes internally from years of protracted contract negotiations, but I've never seen it manifest itself in how we treat our customers or each other.

If you have the jumpseat pass (Cockpit) then you are required to pre board per the ground ops manual. It helps speed up the flow and gets the awkward "where do I put my bag" out of the way. If there are seats in the back (or even if they say there aren't) I always tell jumpseaters to head on back and get comfy and we will call if we need you.
The problem that a lot of commuters run into is that the CSAs are either too lazy or too hurried to run CASS, so they just print a boarding pass. Now they aren't required to let you preboard, though most old school ops agents will.
I work for SWA and I always ask them if I can please have the cockpit so that I can preboard and introduce myself. I have gotten a few sideways glances, but it takes less than a minute and they know it is the right thing to do.
ATL is possibly the worst station for nonrevving of any sort. I get treated better by Delta than I do by AirTran...I mean southwest.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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

...
 

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.

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.

I agree. I also think it's getting tougher to hire the kinds of folks they want to hire. The Gen X, Y, and Z people in general are a tough group to root through to find the kinds of candidates they are looking for.

Always enjoyed the courtesy and kindness of SWA pilots accommodating me on the jump seat and/or with a seat in the back.

Gate agents and FA's do get a bit snippy, but not bad really. I just ignore the mean ones.

A plug here for AA. I had a Captain come out of the cockpit and apologize he didn't have a first class seat for me when I was JSing and I ended up in Coach. heck, I was just glad to have a seat in the back. However, he had to manage the Stew's. I could tell his FA's were a bit cantankerous. AA FA's seem to be a bit tired and worn out.

In my experience, it depends upon the station. Most of the stations will let you preboard so you can show your tickets, drop off the paperwork and ask the Captain for a jumpseat ride even if you're in the back.

Other stations don't and those are usually at the busier airports (LAX, ATL, for example). That said, it ALWAYS helps to list on the phone. That way it make it easy for the CSA to pull up your info and process you, especially at the busier stations.

Note: You can't list on the phone if the flight departs in less than 1 hour.

I've never had a single problem with a SWA jumpseat. Everyone I've encountered, pilots, F/As and CSAs have been uniformly helpful and accommodating. Thanks for the ride!

Cockpit jumpseaters are supposed to preboard in order to get your introductions without jamming up the boarding process. It is in the GOM. When they announce preboards, go line up behind the wheelchair folks and go down right after them. You are doing everyone, including yourself, a favor.

Does this apply to "cockpit jumpseaters" who are sitting in the back? I have tried to pre-board a few times, and was told to get to the back of the line. And a couple of times, I have been allowed to pre-board but got the stink eye.

Conversely, I have also been told to pre-board when I got my boarding pass, and a seat in the back.

So it seems to be all over the map. Would be nice to know what the official policy is, if I am jumpseating but have a seat in the back.

I use SW a lot and I am always treated great! Thank you!

Mr. White

Agreed. It's all over the map and leaves me always on edge as to what to do. When I wait, I'm asked why I waited. When I ask to pre-board, I'm told I'm in group C. Hahah. Can't win!

That said, all the crews I've dealt with have been more than accommodating, so Thank you!

I believe that any time you are on a jumpseat pass, you are required to check in with the cockpit to verify credentials. Even if they give you a seat in the back, you are still a jumpseater. Go down with the preboards. You are not a nonrev pass rider obligated to board with your group. Many ops agents are clueless.

I had a SWA pilot look it up one day, and from what he read, you are allowed to pre-board when your boarding pass is for the actual flight deck jumpseat. Otherwise they can tell you to find your place in line with your boarding group. Most of the time I get away with pre-boarding when I have a seat in the back, but it always depends on what mood the agent is in, of course. I use SWA all the time and they always treat me well!

The key is to have a flight deck jumpseat pass. Some of the agents don't want to take the extra 10 seconds to do CASS so they will just print a boarding pass. If you politely ask them (before they print the pass is best) for the flight deck jumpseat then that is usually what you will get.
Flight deck jumpseaters always flow to the back unless the flight is going to be completely full. The standard spiel is "thanks for checking in, welcome aboard, take a seat in the back somewhere close and we will call you if we need you".
At most of the smaller or older SWA stations, anyone in uniform will preboard regardless of what kind of boarding pass they have.

Tried to pre boaRd on my DH today and the ops said I had to wait in line with everyone else. I brought up the policy has changed so we can pre board and he wouldn't even look at me.
We had 3 DH and not one of us was allowed down before our group.
So there is definitely some grouches out there.