Southwest - WHY no assigned seats?

[flyingitalian]

Better check your facts on that one. AirTran was profitable for the year 2002 ($10.7M), and will post higher than forecast profits for the 1Q 2003.

I stand corrected.


Airtran Profit picture.
Net income for the full-year 2002 was $10.7 million or $0.15 per diluted share compared to a profit of $21.7 million for 2001 before non-recurring adjustments

 

[MLBWINGBORN]

One very vocal person that has had a bad personal experience is not and does not show a trend..

While I am sorry to ever hear of anyone having a bad experience with us,I have to wonder sometimes about the traveling publics logic..

We have been doing business as an air carrier for 31 years the same way as we did when we started as far as not having both assigned seating and first class service..Everybody knows we dont have meal service and only serve "dry"snacks and peanuts..

Yet every day we have people getting on the planes asking about their free upgrade to first class as well as meal service or perhapes show up 3 minutes prior to push and are ticked about not having a seat near a window..

If these same folks tried to show up three minutes prior to push at most other airlines they would get a door slammed in the face..

The reasons we do things the way we do them is because they work and for the vast majority of the time our customers like it that way..
If anyone ever has a bad travel experience on OUR airline due to one of our employess providing less than the very best possible service then we have failed our customers and we should be made aware of the facts and i can assure you it would be looked into..

But..If we fail to meet anyones unreasonable needs or idea of what our airline should be..I can only say that you are free to consider any one of several options in order to meet your travel needs..
Even then at that late point we would be sad to see you go..We just cant be everyones idea of what an airline should be and survive..

And lastly..

I do have to ask what purpose this post is serving..?
Why post this sort of complaint in an open forum and not direct it to the proper folks in Customer Service?

Based on the number of replys to input i dare say that this poster wont be happy until the world is made in his image..

SWA may or may not one day have assigned seating..It will only happen when its the right thing to do for the company and its passengers..

31 years and counting...We gotta be doing something right..

Mike

 

[General Lee]

MLBWINGBORN,

I know that Southwest has operated the same way for 30 years. And look, you've been profitable throughout---which is great. Your product is the same everyday, and people know what to expect, which is good service at a low price. Now new entrants like Jetblue come in and offer the same Low Cost Passenger a new twist---some entertainment.(Not like your Flt Attendants singing their announcements---which I thought was funny) Song will try to up the ante---with live TV and make your own music lists. Will it work? It might. But these airlines are adding more to the mix than just low fares. Southwest might want to think about giving some extra passenger comforts on those longer flights---because the cheery flight attendant service is great until about Denver eastbound, then they want to watch Letterman.
Assigned seats might just be a start.

Hey, Sierra Hotel---I didn't threaten anyone---ah yeah!!!! (Although Song will kick everyone elses' ass!!) OOOOPS!! There I go again.

Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Tailwheel]

Heavy Set
You need to understand where Southwest came from to understand why they do things the way they do. Please read Thomas Petzinger's "Hard Landing" or the classic "Nuts" and you'll see.

Believe me, everything Southwest does is meticulously and methodically thought out, right down to the way they board an airplane. Believe me, they've had 32 years to figure out how to do business in their, classic unique style.

You are now free to do some research. I challenge you!

(those books really are great)

Cheers!

 

[Heavy Set]

I appreciate all of the professional replies - although some were a bit defensive in nature. And of course, General Lee is always entertaining... In any case, I have no ulterior motives here - I was just expressing my opinion and sharing my thoughts about how to improve a product - just constructive feedback. I realize Southwest has operated this way for eons - and it may not want to change. As a paying passenger, I felt my feelings were shared by many others.

It is true that Southwest is the last of the carriers to offer unassigned seats - a fact. It is true that some (maybe not all) passengers are annoyed with this arrangement and put up with it because of the cheap fares and high frequency service. Knowing that some aspects of Southwest travel had changed (i.e., paper confirmation tickets vs. previous plastic cards), I felt it COULD be an appropriate time to suggest a change that might work given the changing circumstances. I was not trying to be disruptive. I merely pointed out a helpful suggestion - or it least I thought I was being helpful.

It is my humble opinion that assigned seats would benefit Southwest and its passengers. I understand this might impact turnaround times and the all-critical flight schedule. I hope smart, logistical types could figure out a way to both preserve "competitive" turnaround times and provide this desired product feature. I assure you, Southwest would benefit and the "cattle car" stigma would disappear FOREVER...

Thank you for indulging me.

 

[MLBWINGBORN]

Other than this board, whom else have you made aware of your experiences?

Again...If you have a concern im sure it will be considered..

If the fine folks in Dallas see a genuine need to change the boarding process that will benefit both the company as well as our passengers I have no doubt they will move heaven and earth to make it happen..

Although its rumored that alot of "folks" read this board...I very seriously doubt that you will get very far with your concerns unless you take it to the people that can do something about it..

SO..write a letter and follow it up with a phone call...Give the people that get paid to listen a chance to do their jobs..

Going on and on like this in an open forum does nothing more than reduce your arguments to the level of flame bait..

Mike

 

[Anaconda]

a few months back colleen wrote an article in the swa inflight magazine about the assigned seating subject. not sure if you can do a search for it on their site or not, but in a nutshell it all came down to $$$ in her justification for why they do what they do. i'm sure that's the response you would get if you wrote or called customer svc...

 

[madjack]

To quote from an Associated Press Article in yesterday's paper titled "Airlines' bad year was a good one for customers":

"Southwest, the only major airline that made a profit last year, also got better. The airline consistently has the lowest complaint rate - .33 per 100,000 passengers - compared with an industry rate of 1.22."

 

[tredding@swa]

yea baby....

nuff said..... any more arguments???

Row, row, row yer boat....

Tred

 

[trainerjet]

See my previous post for further explanation, but if your expectations are low, there is very little to be disappointed with and therefore, nothing to complain about.

 

[Heavy Set]

Not "You Get What You Pay For"

Last time... This is not a "you get what you pay for" situation because AirTran and Jetblue are dirt cheap too yet provide better customer experiences... I would bet money that most customers would choose Jetblue vs. Southwest in a comparison test (one-way on each) on a New York to Florida route. Southwest should consider changing its policy - even if it adds 5-10 minutes to their turnaround times - not much considering all of the schedule padding that we know happens... Jetblue always seems to load passengers quickly - I have never been late on a Jetblue departure.

Good luck!

 

[Snoopy58]

How do they do the weight & balance?

The ops agents can control where all the bags & cargo go in the holds (forward & aft), so they have a lot of control of the CG that way. Generally, unless you're close to a limit, it matters not; with a really full airplane, the pax will be evenly distributed since there won't be many empty seats (& since they'll all be middle ones, fairly evenly distributed at that); on a mostly empty flight, it isn't all that much weight that you're worried about. On the rare case when you ARE close to a limit, the ops agent uses "the loading rule" (that's what the W&B form calls it), which requires half the pax to sit in the front half of the jet (not usually a difficult thing -- people want to be "first one off" most of the time anyway). The flight attendants would ensure that this happens, if needbe.

In general, though, when you consider the empty weight of a 737 & the amount of control you get putting bags/cargo where you want it, it would take some doing to get too much out of CG with just pax alone. If you were to get in trouble that way, it's probably a case of the "estimated" pax weights being off -- that would concern me more than where they sit.

Somewhat like the other transport catagory aircraft I've flown... you COULD get out of CG in a herk, but it generally took a lot of doing. 98% of the time, any rational load plan would be fine, and you would go over gross long before you'd go out of CG. By the time you had enough weight to move the CG very far, you pretty well HAD to have it uniformly distributed (not enough room to do otherwise), which helped the CG situation. Hauling heavy equipment, you needed to have it tied down in the right spot, but the center of mass of 20k of equipment can vary lot more in a fore-aft direction than the center of mass of 100 people!

Hope that helps!