I need to book a flight for August and I have jury duty right before then. I will use SW since I may have to cancel. It’s the only airline that would let me do that without a penalty.
SWA has rarely been the cheapest for the places I fly. Been checking them for years, ever since the fist kid went to college, and we almost always found UA, AA or DL cheaper, and not requiring two stops to cross the country.
Based on our limited experience, the idea of SWA being cheap is a myth.
Full disclosure, we have a Chase-UA card, so we earn free bags.
In many markets, Southwest is absolutely the cheapest. It really depends on the market and the route.
Used to fly SW to Phoenix, take the lovely dawn flight, direct, got there mid morning local time. And it was cheap. Recently went to Tucson and Delta was not only the most convenient, early, only one stop, and least expensive, but their service and customer attitude were super. I travel light, but don’t they offer one bag can be checked free?
Nope. All airlines except SW charge for bags now, I think. $25 on Delta. SW, 2 bags free.
Being in the Chicago market, and making most of our trips to either Texas, Boston, or major cities on the west coast, it is cheaper for us 90% of the time, and we get direct flights. A friend of mine was telling me this morning she has been researching flights between Chicago and Boston for September and found a RT for $148 on Southwest.
That being said, I currently have a lot of credit card points and am booking a few trips for this year with those points, so we are flying other airlines out of O’Hare. I sure hope we have the same on time record as I’ve almost always experienced with Southwest. Have I mentioned how much I hate O’Hare airport?
^^my son has been in Chicago for the past three years, and has flown SWA just once to SoCal. AA has generally be the cheapest.
A report/study from a few years ago:
I’ve lived in a city Southwest doesn’t fly to (and in fact doesn’t fly within nearly 1,500 miles of here) for several years now, so I don’t have a dog in this fight, but for a long, long time Southwest hasn’t actually been competitive on price on many or even most routes. They still get referred to as a “discount” and even a “startup” airline, but let’s be honest, they’ve been around a good long while, and they’re effectively now one of the old-guard mainline carriers—no real difference between Southwest and Delta and United and American, really, aside from marketing.
Southwest is now the 4th largest American based carrier and faces higher costs than it did years ago as a start-up airline, as explained in this 2014 article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-11/southwest-airlines-no-longer-the-low-cost-leader
“It’s no longer the industry’s low-cost leader. Just as Southwest has grown—becoming America’s No. 4 airline—so have its costs. Today, Southwest has per-mile operating costs that come close to its three larger rivals, American Airlines Group, Delta Air Lines, and United Continental Holdings.”
“Southwest is also no longer the low-fare leader in many cities, having steadily raised prices in recent years. Southwest’s average one-way fare rose 8 percent, to $163, over the past year. The lowest nonstop one-way fare from Chicago to Los Angeles on Southwest, American, United, and Virgin America, for instance, was $156.10 on Sept. 10. That was $44 more than Spirit’s cheapest. Southwest continues to trumpet its “Bags fly free” policy as well as the absence of fees to change tickets or make phone reservations. But those passenger-friendly gestures also mean the carrier has ceded revenue sources that other airlines enjoy—yet another reason it no longer promotes the kind of low ($39 and under) fares it once offered in abundance.”
@teriwtt, you should get a SW card. @dfbdfb, SW is different in the fee area. No change fees, no baggage fees. And points have no blackout dates or restrictions to certain seats, which is worth something. The change fee thing can be a big deal. When my mom was in and out of the hospital and in hospice a few months ago, I had to make mutiple changes to tickets for multiple trips, and for me and my kids. I bet it would have cost me over $1,000 to make all the changes I did on any other airline.
Another Chicagoan in praise of Midway Airport here. The time and headaches I save are worth a few bucks, too. But no, I wouldn’t pay hundreds more for SW, nor would I accept a flight with stops if there were nonstop options. Chicagoans are super spoiled when it comes to nonstop flights. I expect to go nonstop to Osaka, Vienna, you name it, never mind US destinations. The last place I went that wasn’t served by any Chicago flight was Gainesville.
Not only can you change flights with Southwest, you can rebook your existing trip if the price drops. I’ve done that plenty of times; buy tickets early at a reasonable price then follow the flights for the next few weeks. If the price goes down I rebook and leave the difference as a credit for my next trip. Last year there was some kind of mini fare war going on and I was able to rebook our flights for $41 one way San Diego-Chicago. I’m sure we won’t see the likes of that again…
@intparent, back when I loved in a Southwest-served city, at least one of the Big Three was consistently cheaper than Southwest anywhere we ever flew, even taking baggage fees into consideration. (And I have only once in my life ever needed to change a reservation, and that was business travel that was paid for by someone else, because they’re the ones that demanded the change.) The Southwest-served city I lived in before that, same thing. The multiply-Southwest-served region I lived in before that, yeah, Southwest won on fares, but now we’re talking 20-some years ago, and things were different for the entire industry then.
I get that Southwest has brand loyalty that the Big Three legacy carriers would kill for. I’m just saying that it makes no sense to base that loyalty on fares. There are plenty of things to prefer Southwest for (and, in my case, their cattle-call boarding to disprefer them for), but make sure that the reasons are grounded (ha! in a thread about airlines, I pun!) in reality.
I have never caught SW because their fares have always been significantly higher than UAL and others. Luggage isn’t an issue for us because we darry on or have a few checked bag.
I too have rarely ever needed to cancel or change flights, except on MD orders and then generally gotten refunded.
I think it’s great that so many swear by SW and it has served a lot of folks well.
I’ve mostly flown UAL, except for a few years when I flew AA. My S flew SW Between DC and Orlando for work. Between DC and CA, he mostly flies UAL.
“They still get referred to as a “discount” and even a “startup” airline, but let’s be honest, they’ve been around a good long while, and they’re effectively now one of the old-guard mainline carriers—no real difference between Southwest and Delta and United and American, really, aside from marketing.”
This is how I feel about them as well. They are just another alternative to UA/AA that has a different boarding procedure and (for me) flies from a different airport. For any given search, you could snare a great deal - or you could have options with horrible times and connections compared to UA/AA.
In May, I flew Southwest for a trip to Florida and AA for a trip to Philadelphia. Six of one, half dozen of the other!
Disclaimer though - I have enough status on UA/AA that my bags are free, and I don’t check bags anyway (except when I had to carry work materials).
I don’t share the dislike of ORD that others have. It’s always been fine for me.
The SW boarding process doesn’t bother me at all. Many of the other carriers try to upswell you for preferred seats anyway.
Being able to rebook when fares go down, as mentioned above, is a big plus. I have changed or cancelled many flights and SW is really the only game in town if that can happen.
Of course people are going to go with price, though.
DS switched from using SW to using Virgin America as the routes he typically flies are served by them and he has been happy with the fares and service. He is now their highest status (gold or whatever it is). If it flew to our city I’d try them. He has been very pleased with them.
DH and I have used SW periodically, but as others have said, often their fares aren’t the best, and they are not direct. We are flying across country in a few weeks and Delta was (a) direct, (b) had better flight times and © was cheaper. We are checking one bag on this trip, but even with the cost of that, it’s still cheaper than SW. And honestly, I prefer to be able to book my seat in advance than have to sit on the computer and try to grab I exactly at 24 hrs before my flight, or feel pressured into paying $15/flight (I remember when it was $10/flight, two increases ago) for the earlybird checkin. So, if you pay for that round trip, it costs more than checking a bag on Delta.
DH doesn’t travel as much as he used to, so lost his gold status on Delta, and I refuse to pay for a credit card, so we often don’t have the greatest boarding group. That said, so far, we have not had a problem getting out carryons in the overhead, and who cares if you get to walk on their blue rug or not! Also, we usually get TSA precheck when we book Delta using his account. Have heard that might change, but so far, so good.
Fortunately we have not had to make many changes with flights so the change fee has been a non-issue, but DS and wife had to with some fares they had on SW and United, and of course United hit them with a fee. I had an absolutely horrible experience with American/US Airways (they are now one but weren’t when this mess happened) and will avoid them at all cost.
I was recently on a SW flight and the person next to me waiting at the gate had missed her 6:30 am flight due to traffic and long TSA lines and was trying to fly standby. She was trying to get to her ill mother on SW and was unable to get ANY flight to ANYWHERE that day. I felt badly for her. Our flight was standby flight # 3 for her that she could not get on.
I find SW ok, but not any big deal, and was very annoyed that when they merged with AirTran (it’s not Air Trans) they cancelled their flights into White Plains. AirTran was usually cheaper, and they flew a full body plane rather than the little embrauer planes Delta flew, that required gate checking of roller boards. Didn’t like to have to do that.
I am also still scarred by a long cross country flight with a person in the middle seat that was as awful as you can imagine (dirty, rude, smelly, inconsiderate, etc) spread out into the spaces on either side,his nasty, dirty hair all over me, with his head on the tray table and his elbows sticking into me and the person on the other side. Perfectly MISERABLE 4 HR SW flight.
A consideration for me is whether there are a lot of flights traveling the particular route I’m on. That’s a big reason I won’t fly Spirit - if there is just one flight a day to the location, then you are screwed if there is a mechanical or similar problem. Typically for the destinations I fly, UA and AA run quite a few direct flights a day – SW can be a bit more hit or miss, or they run a combo of direct and connection flights to the destination.
I have not had this happen to us (fingers crossed) but have heard that sometimes Delta will cancel a direct flight and rebook you on a flight with connections. Ugh. And I doubt they mine any $ accommodations of the fares were cheaper on the non-direct flights., but don’t know.
I don’t mind Southwest’s boarding policy at all. In fact, I’ve found they have the fastest boarding and de-planing of any airline, mostly because there aren’t so darn many passengers that have crammed jam-packed “carry-on” bags to deal with. When I booked our flight last week for a California vacation on United, they were charging something like $45 per seat, per leg to get a seat in the front half of the plane. We took the cheap seats further back. Here’s hoping we make our connection when we go home.