Also, Southwest's no-questions-asked-no-limits policy on cancelling and rebooking tickets makes them my favorite. They recently put a limit of one year on the rebooked ticket, however. You can do this right up until boarding has already begun and there are no penalties. Nobody else does this.

They're polite, they're generally well run, seats are reasonable, maintenance seems to be good, they have good routes, cheap tickets, good baggage policy, and don't fee you to death. On top of that, they have responsive customer service on the phone, or via DM Twitter, which is way better than sitting on the phone!

Whatever they're doing is the right way and all other airlines should just copy them.

As a "normal" flyer, Southwest was the only airline I flew with in the US which didn't seem to make it its MO to have me be as miserable as possible through the entire experience. The budget pay-extra-for-everything airlines in Australia and SEA consistently provide a better experience than what I got from Delta, United or American.

Strongly disagree. Southwest is hugely overrated imo. It’s one of those companies that maybe used to be better or something, so they have a whole class of fans who are blind to how lame they currently are. I’m probably that way about Apple :)

Not that any of the other major carriers is much better. But I don’t love the lining up and then hoping for a good seat, they’re often not the cheapest, and letting everyone check two bags for “free” is a cost drag on everyone. Unbundling is better. So is having different classes of service so that people who want to subsidize the entire cost of the flight for a lie flat seat can do so.

I’ve also had multiple shitty customer service experiences with them, including one where they wouldn’t let me board an earlier half-full flight instead of the one I was ticketed on without trying to charge me 2x the cost of my ticket as an upgrade fee. Now, I obviously wasn’t entitled to anything beyond what I paid for, but I’ve been treated much better by many airlines and they were just rude about it. They owed me nothing, and they weren’t about to let me forget it.

I still fly them every now and then but it’s a pretty mediocre brand that people are irrationally excited about.

Southwest, at least as of 2 years ago when I stopped flying. Of course being partial to them just means I'd check their prices first, before Matrix.

1. Experienced pilots on all legs, rather than eg Corporate Liability Shield #73 dba United Express.

2. No change fees. Sure, fellating surveillance programs on other airlines can probably get you this too, but why bother?

3. As you've referenced, two free bags. Most of the time "unbundling" means paying the same fare plus the fees.

4. Hot chocolate (yes, this really deserves its own bullet point).

If any airline actually stopped enabling the blue shirted molesters, I would switch in a heartbeat. Until then, they're really all just cattle cars.

My feelings on unbundling: it's less about the product, and more about product-market fit.

Air travel was a premium market product for many Americans well within living memory. The old regulated-pricing model helped to reinforce this: airlines used to sometimes advertise "we're the same cost as the other guys, but our food is better/planes are faster/experience is superior." So people traditionally expect a certain degree of basic services and features.

The market pivoted quite quickly towards "we're promoting the lowest price we legally can by means of unbundling features", and obviously, they're not going to trumpet the second half of that premise.

Either cnnsumers aren't quite ready to adjust their expectations that far downward, or the product is now so hollowed out that even the new lower price feels too high for what it is.

Economy airline travel is insanely cheap now, often quite a bit cheaper for two round trip tickets than driving the same distance in a personally owned car would cost.

> letting everyone check two bags for “free” is a cost drag on everyone

Not necessarily. More checked bags -> fewer carry-ons -> faster boarding as people aren't trying to cram their bags into the overhead and giving up and gate-checking -> shorter turnaround time -> higher aircraft utilization, cheaper airport fees -> cheaper tickets

> faster boarding as people aren't trying to cram their bags

Checking and loading baggage takes way longer, not to mention the unloading and waiting at the other end.

but it happens at a point where time is less critical. After a plane lands and the passengers depart, there is a race to clean, restock, and and board customers for the next flight, so the plane can get back in the air. Any part of that process that can be made more efficient benefits airlines. Checking luggage likely reduces complexity during that narrow window, and adds it before and after the flight

Not with containerised baggage

i suspect people's opinions about airlines are severely skewed by their home airport and choice of route. i mainly fly between two southwest hubs, and only occasionally is there a delay of 30-60 minutes. when i fly the same route on united, it is delayed more often than not, sometimes by hours or even cancelled entirely.

On the other hand if you’re flying with another person and you want to sit together, you’re more or less forced to pay for a seat upgrade. I’ve flown on Southwest with my girlfriend 5 times this year and only 1 time did we get to sit together even when I checked in exactly 24 hours beforehand. It’s infuriating. I imagine if you’re traveling with children it’s completely unacceptable.

There’s a lot of things I like about Southwest Airlines, but the lack of assigned seats negates them all.

They have special family boarding. My wife and I just pay for a single seat upgrade, and then hold a second for the late boarder. Would want to be up front anyway.

i honestly have a hard time believing this. i've flown southwest multiple times a year with my family for over a decade. we never pay for early check-in and we're always able to sit together in pairs, often no more than a couple rows apart. i can't remember the last time i checked in within an hour of check-in being unlocked and didn't get a B or even a high A. maybe it depends on the route?

Definitely depends on the route. I used to live in Indiana and flying out of Indy was as you described. I now live in Denver and I always need to upgrade if I want to guarantee sitting next to my wife.

Absolutely not. Not ever. Their service is fine, but the last thing I want to do is have to pay extra or race to checkin at the exact right time to get the right boarding group to stand in the right place to fight for a seat.

I want my seat to be there, waiting for me, when I feel like getting on the plane.

I don't even go to movie theaters that force me to have seat anxiety. I'm sure not gonna do it on an airline.

You prefer climbing over people and/or being climbed over? I like assigned seats, too, but they make me time anxious.

I've never once felt obligated to get on the plane earlier just because I had a window. The person on the aisle knows someone will be getting into the empty seats, so they leave their seatbelt undone and get up when I arrive. I do the same if I have the aisle. Maybe this makes me an asshole, but I don't think this is one of those "common courtesy" things; after all, airlines are far from standard in boarding process; I don't think boarding groups usually favor window first; if anything they're random or start from the back of the plane first, or something like that.

I wouldn't worry about it so much if you can help it; I think it's just normal to have to get in to a window seat. If it bothers you, perhaps select the aisle and comfort yourself that you're being nice by boarding last :)

I used to wait to be the very last person to board the plane. I saw no reason to board early and then wait around while everyone else boards. Unfortunately the recent move to charge for checked baggage has made that approach problematic because far more people are bringing full sized carryons, making overhead space precious. However if you have minimal carryons, I'd recommend being the very last person to board--it is far less stressful.

These days, I just don't fly unless I absolutely have to.

> There are many reasons they have been the only airline to be profitable for decades

As of roughly a decade ago, according to Philip Greenspun, airline profitability was mostly determined by management's negotiating leverage with unions: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines

> Federal aviation regulations, on the other hand, require an airline to operate with pilots who have specific training for and experience at that airline.... An airline whose pilots go out on strike is therefore shut down.

> A competent pilot union negotiator will present the airline with a plan to transfer essentially all expected future profits into the paychecks of pilots. It does not make sense to accept less because the pilots always have the power to strike and shut the airline down. The only real point of discussion would concern the best estimate of what the airline's profits are likely to be during the term of the contract.

> ...Should the economy turn down during the contract period, the pilots, having expected to collect 95 percent of the airline's profits, will in fact be entitled to 115 percent of the airline's profits. As the airlines tend to operate with fairly small reserves, paying out 115 percent of profits results in the airline seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and a federal judge adjusts the pilot union contract so that the pilots are back to collecting 95 percent of the new estimated profit figure.

...

> How does Southwest survive and prosper? Since they are constantly growing they don't have as high a percentage of senior pilots as their competitors. Also, their union may be taking a longer/smarter/more realistic view about maximizing its compensation. A union does have an incentive to avoid bankrupting an airline: if the airline goes Chapter 7 (liquidation) rather than Chapter 11 (reorganization), the senior pilots may have to start over at another airline at 1/10th of their former hourly compensation.

Southwest has historically done a lot of things very, very well, but airlines are also a weird business where "profitability" and "not going bankrupt" are strange concerns.

I don't know what about this has changed or if we've just been lucky not to have any high-profile airline bankruptcies since then. Perhaps pilots unions have followed the example of the NBA players' union and have negotiated for a specific revenue share rather than (or in addition to) a hard salary floor.

the fact that they only fly one kind of plane must help at least a little. maybe this gives them a little more leverage with the union, since the pilots are individually interchangeable?

as an aside, when i fly, i usually travel with my dad, who is a big general aviation enthusiast. he often remarks that the southwest pilots make by far the smoothest landings.

Ugh, with the stupid online checkin asap to get the lining up order, I prefer United Basic Economy over Southwest. I even prefer Ryanair over Southwest.

I haven't found this to be a problem. Worst case with Southwest, I get a bad position in line, leaving only seats I don't like. Any other airline could assign me a seat I don't like earlier in the process, and it's not always possible to change especially without paying extra.