S flew Southwest almost exclusively during college and rarely had a delay. He always took the first flight out (if he could) or the one with no plane change. His flight was never direct. During the last year, he has often had delays. I hope it won’t be a deal breaker for him. I do appreciate how flexible they are with changing flight dates/times and postponing travel. That has saved us a bundle over the years.
We have had great service so far on Alaska and they fly where we want to go non-stop.
I like Jet blue but usually fly SW. Their no fee on rebooking has me hooked. I really dislike having the plane held for late customers though when it gets beyond 20-30 minutes. I recently sat on the plane for well over an hour and this is not uncommon.
No airline is always the cheapest. Locally, United is often competitive or cheaper when buying in advance, but it tends to be very delay-risky other than first flights of the morning, and the boarding and in flight experience are not very nice if you do not have elite status (that gets the premium economy seats at least). Preassigned seating is not really an advantage if you are not an elite who can choose the premium economy seats (or you pay extra), and you might not be able to preassign a seat at all if the flight is near full or overbooked.
We’ve had good luck with Virgin America. D prefers their nonstop between LA and Newark to go back and forth to school. I prefer Jet Blue to JFK. United is the worst, just the worst…And don’t get me started on American…
In all fairness, I did forget about one great benefit of SWA, namely the companion pass. I am in striking distance to earn it this year and that will make the higher fares more acceptable.
It may not help for student/parent trips but there are some crazy low September fares right now between San Diego and Chicago. I’ve been changing the legs of my upcoming trip and have now gotten it down to $108 round trip non-stop.
Just checked LGA-MDW for fun and low low fares there too; also PHL so maybe more markets. No idea how long they’ll last.
A fan of Southwest here… My D flew across country last month on Southwest. She was supposed to have a short layover with no plane change, but after sitting 15 minutes waiting for the plane to reload, the 10 or so passengers were told they would have to change planes after all, but there would be no delay. They were given very little direction about where to go, and were shifted between gates several times. Southwest employees didn’t do a good job of directing them and they only found their new plane by asking a lot of questions. Not a huge deal, but my D was frustrated with the customer service so e-mailed them later. They sent her an apology and a $400 voucher for the inconvenience. Not bad for a quick e-mail and a little inconvenience.
This morning she arrived at the airport to fly SW again only to find that her flight was delayed 3 hours. She commented that she would miss her connecting flight and the agent immediately got her on a flight that was leaving in 25 minutes. He then walked her through security and to the gate to make sure she made it on the flight. In addition, since she now has to make an additional short stop on her new flight, he gave her a $200 voucher.
She flew United 2 weeks ago and was delayed almost 3 hours. It was a mess and customer service was non-existent. No apology, no vouchers, no nothing. We fly SW frequently and really have not had any issues. Maybe we have just been lucky, but I love SW.
When my mom fell a few hours before a return flight on SW, we went to the ER for a head scan and nine stitches. Had to throw out bloody shirt and scramble in rental car trunk for half-way clean new shirt. Made it to flight with a few minutes to spare and asked if we could board with the first boarders to give her extra time and to not be bumped into (she looked like heck) or have to stand in long line. Said we would take undesirable seats. Gate agent just gives a curt no. Nice people.
@Marilyn, thanks for the tip on the extremely low San Diego-Chicago fares. My D1 is moving back from San Diego in September and I might snag her a $41 ticket.
@preioronic - we had a similar situation that turned out entirely differently. Several years ago, D2 and I were rear-ended while stopped in traffic on the interstate in Philadelphia on our way back to the airport in the rental car after having attended a campus event. Our rental car was totaled. We were pretty sore, but just wanted to get home and not go to the ER in Philadelphia and be delayed getting home (we’d also been to the funeral of my nephew in another state earlier that week who was killed in a car wreck). When we got to the gate, we explained our situation to the gate agent and she did let us board early.
Then, when that flight never made it off the ground after a massive air traffic control computer outage across the east coast delayed us… although, we made it out to the runway, but some unruly, drunk passengers kept getting up and going to the bathroom while we were on the runway, four planes from taking off, so we had to go back to the gate so airport police could come on and escort them off. After all this, it was too late to depart and still make it to Chicago before their airport closed for the night, so we ended up staying in Philadelphia for the night and were booked on a 8AM flight the next morning. None of this was Southwest’s fault… but about four weeks later, totally unsolicited, we received two free RT travel vouchers for anywhere they flew. Their letter said they apologized for the computer outage (though, not their outage) so they were issuing these vouchers to everyone on the flight… except for the two unruly passengers who created the commotion, leading to us not being able to take off.
I sing Southwest’s praises whenever I can, and yes, they are not perfect, but after the handful of trips we’ve had on United this year (H’s work travel and me, using one of his vouchers) were totally screwed up, I will still always choose Southwest. And yes, we are flying Southwest tomorrow, and after all my griping about United this summer, karma could come back and bite me in the butt, but by far, we have had HUGELY different experiences between Southwest and United. I suspect because Chicago is a hub for Southwest, we are somewhat more fortunate not to be caught in some of their delays, etc., but you know what? Chicago is THE hub for United, and H consistently has flights screwed up by them.
Perfect travel today on SW- Nashville to Denver.
Chicago has more than one airport. O’Hare is a hub for United and American. Midway has a large Southwest presence.
I flew Southwest this past Sunday from BOS-MDW and then MDW-SFO. Both flights took off on time and landed early. Although flights were full, boarding was seamless.