Do business people hate Southwest now?

[spitfire1500]

GL, my brother owns a small business. He has employees travel on occasion but he's not big enough for any airline to be interested in a corporate travel arrangement. He uses Southwest quite a bit because they have the lowest fully refundable tickets. He also books the cheapest hotels, usually something like Best Western.

Our travel dept is concerned with one thing and one thing only price....if a three stop trip home is $20 less than a direct they get you that...I never get put on Southwest. Flavors of the month lately have been Delta and USAir..seems they are the cheapest for now (our tickest are refundable..and I am a silver of gold member of pretty much everyones mileage programs). Next month it will prob change to United and American......or maybe Southwest....

 

[Flopgut]

This might have a great deal to do with what SWA did to Rapid Rewards frequent flyer program. I used to be a member of Rapid Rewards, and many others. SWA screwed 90% of RR members. If you're a frequent flyer you are throwing good money away flying SWA...

 

[skypine69]

I travel on a paid ticket 2-4 times a month. Always last minute fares. If I had to fly on WN I would go insane. They are great for nonrevs and bubbas, but for a person who travels enough to be a elite member of a FF program, they suck. I made silver on DL recently and have been upgraded 3 of my last 4 flights. The 3 were trans-cons...the one i missed was a 1 hour flight on an RJ. What a difference it makes to be able to pick your seat and have a good chance at getting upgraded!

 

[pilotyip]

So......... your brother's a cheap @ss. If his employees weren't just happy to have a job in this economy, they'd probably walk or revolt. What's your point? At least they only travel "on occasion".


You're making GL's point for him. Employers with folks on the road weekly with multiple flights and overnights know better than to do that to their people. They won't get people to stay in the job very long or be productive sitting them in a corn-dog next to Bubba on their way to a Best Western.

I am sure that is one way to look at it, but we don't have the rest of the picture. Could it be this company has dedicated employees, who work to keep costs down and the company has a high level of productivity and profitibility At year the boss shares a $150K bonus with his employees. Small businesses are a different world and they have a different set of employees, normally very loyal committment both ways.

 

[SWA/FO]

Good thing there is plenty of folks to go around.

 

[Aerosurfer]

What are the perks for Business people to travel on Southwest?



Bye Bye---General Lee

Don't forget you can get water in a can! It kinda looks like Labat blue..... thats a perk

 

[Flying the Line]

According to BTN's website they have 46,759 subscribers that spend 239 Billion dollars a year annually. My Dad is a subscriber. What ever the highest level of frequent flier status you can have with Continental is, he has it. I think that's the sorta person who reads and cares about that stuff. I think there is a difference between traveling on business and a business traveller. The business traveller spends money on travel as a cost of doing business. Traveling on business implies you just need to get from point a to b to get the job done. It really isn't realistic to compare the level of service offered by a legacy carrier to any of the LCC's. The LCC's will get a portion of business transports who are attempting to curb costs. But the airport clubs, first/business class and global reach puts the legacies in a different class of service.

And I'm sure that your dad voted for continental. Delta ff probably has the largest subscribership. The second place finisher probably has the second highest number of subscribers and southwest rapid rewards members proably has the least number of subscribers. So what. Miami dolphin fans think their tram is the best, it doesn't make it true.

 

[redflyer65]

I love the look on the business man's face when Delta pulls into the gate and everyone is standing up for 15 minutes waiting for the door to open. No jetbridge driver, pilots apologizing out the @ss. It's become common place at DL, funny stuff.

 

[SWA/FO]

I love the look on the business man's face when Delta pulls into the gate and everyone is standing up for 15 minutes waiting for the door to open. No jetbridge driver, pilots apologizing out the @ss. It's become common place at DL, funny stuff.

So true.

 

[Flopgut]

Good thing there is plenty of folks to go around.

Yes, that's a good thing indeed. And we're not trying to take all of SWA's customers. Only the ones with money....