spanky said:
Food for thought, when was the last time you saw trailor trash type passengers on a USAir flight. Seen the show Airline? Notice a good number of type of passengers that fly LUV. My point is this, a majority of LUV's passengers out of PHL will be people who would have never have flown before if it weren't for low fares. The people willing to pay $2400 to fly across the country will continue to fly USAir.
Ahh...."Airline". The "Airline" fueled notion that every one of Southwest flights is filled with "trailer trash" from stem to stern and involves dragging a screaming drunk off an aircraft is about as accurate as the notion that police officers spend every moment of a 10 hour shift pistol whipping ne'er do wells and chasing down "perps" as seen on "COPS".
"COPS" doesn't show police officers writing tickets for doublr parking or talking to a group of school children about safety. Why not? Because that would be about as interesting as watching paint dry. Same goes for a "reality" show about an airline, particularly an airline that has been christened the "greyhound of the skies". A&E could show the hundreds of thousands of millions of uneventful flights. But, then why would anyone watch? Drunks and irates are the exception rather than rule but darn it if they don't make for good TV....if you like that sorta thing.
Almost any WN flight LAX to LAS on a Friday night is going to have more than it's fair share of characters. Just like any flight from anywhere to MCO is likely to be filled with families headed down to the mousetrap. However, the characters and screaming toddlers are balanced by the suits, ties, and briefcases that fill our planes every morning and late afternoon. Next time you find yourself in the airport early on a weekday morning, stroll by the SWA gate. That is if you can find it. We are usally at gate X99 behind the Hotdog on a Stick stand. You might be surprised at how many of the folks "slumming" their way from MDW to STL, LAX to SMF, BWI to PVD, or DAL to HOU might look right at home in First or Business Class on any of the other majors. Many business travelers were flying WN before 9/11. After 9/11 even more had their first WN experience when their corporate travel planners found themselves with an economic gun to their figurative heads. When forced to fly WN, these men and women discovered that while WN has no seat assignments or premium cabin, it is not necessarily the 7th ring of hell. The new and reconfigured planes had fairly comfy leather seats with a decent 32" pitch. The flights in many markets were frequent and usually on-time, the walk-up fares were reasonable, and Full Fare Tickets were flexible. In short what these folks came to discover was that while WN does not offer every amenity or destination that every business traveler requires, they offered enough to meet the needs of more than a few.
Do we have more than our fair share of folks who have scraped together their $39 OW fare and checked a HEFTY bag through as luggage? ABSOLUTELY!!!
Is WN for everybody? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Does WN meet or exceed the expectations of a much broader spectrum of passengers than people give us credit for? ABSOLUTELY. Seems like I remember at some point last year, WN surpassed DL briefly to become the top carrier in terms of Domestic Passengers Carried. Are there enough "trailer trash" passengers in the country to generate those kind of numbers?
I don't think I am taking too great a risk to assume that more than one once great carrier has hung their competitive hat on the notion that
theirpassengers would
neverstoop to flying Southwest. That can be a dangerous assumption and I think some of those carriers rode that mistaken notion right into obsolesence.
In closing I wish the people of US the very best. The rank and file here at WN don't relish what you guys are going through. We are people first and WN employees second. I can only truly speak for myself, but I like to think that none of my co-workers would take pleasure in another's misfortune. This is management's 'war', we just have the unpleasant task of actually going out and 'fighting' it when all we really want to do is come to work everyday and just do our jobs.
Take Care and Fly Safe
SWAFA30
