This thread is about TECHNOLOGY you Flintstone pilots.
Put your feet out for brakes you Corn dogs.
Technology is the topic here not economics.
Dear Luckytohaveajob,
I guess I'm disregarding my own advice, because here I am responding (sigh). I was sure you were just flame baiting, but now it appears that you may actually
believe the crap you're spouting, as incredible as that sounds. So, first, I have to say that you have, without a doubt, the most appropriate moniker in all the history of Flight Info. As stupid (or trying to be more charitable, uninformed) as you clearly are, you are indeed
lucky to have a job in this industry. One can only hope that you are not in any position of responsibility where you may accidentally hurt yourself or others around you. Perhaps a skycap or a ticket-taker.
As far as your actual patently false assertions, FlyingItalian already debunked them one at a time. Can you not
read, either? However, here's a few more tidbits for you:
- Southwest has one of the newest fleets in the world. We're buying dozens of new 737NGs every year and retiring our oldest planes. Newer fleet than United/Continental.
- Every one of our airplanes (even the -300s) are CAT III certified. Is that true for every United/Continental plane?
- Like Italian pointed out, we have every one of the "flight deck technology" items you claimed we didn't, except autoland. I dunno; maybe we have better pilots than you. We're even spearheading the industry in RNP approaches, trying to drag the rest of you industry laggards kicking and screaming into the 21st century. You know, so that ATC can sequence
all airplanes more efficiently, and we
all save money on gas. Would you United/Continental guys
please hurry up?
You then went on to talk about your "superior" technology and how it saves lives. Southwest carries the most passengers in the United States, including the most take-offs and landings (where accidents normally happen). Care to compare United and/or Continental's safety records against Southwests? No?
And then, after
insisting this thread was entirely about technology, you somehow morphed it into a service contest. Talking about lie-flat seat/beds and first class amenities. That's a different business model entirely, and not any kind of comparison. The high-paying first class passengers certainly bring in some money for you, but if you're gonna' talk about numbers, you've got to add them up. Hundreds of coach passengers for every first class passenger certainly trumps that argument.
AND, if you want to talk about service for coach passengers (which brings in the majority of your revenue too, even if you don't want to admit it), we'll go there. Southwest's coach seats (all of 'em) have a seat pitch of 34" (distance between the back of one seat to the next). Most other airlines' coach seats have a pitch of 32", with a few going as high as 33". I'd have to guess not quite as comfortable as Southwest's.
Then (I'm assuming you couldn't help youself), you uttered the single stupidest rant of all:
Airlines delivering a sub-standard product and treating passengers with indifference will eventually go out of business.
Good point. Let's talk about treating passengers and the quality of the product. I'd guess you'd measure how well the passengers were treated by looking at the number of customer service complaints. Geez... who
always leads that metric (and by a wide margin, for that matter)? Surprise! It's Southwest and Airtran. On the other hand, United and Continental? Hmmm... Not so much. But hey, sometimes you actually score in ahead of USAir. That ought to count for something.
Bubba
