It’s Time for Southwest Airlines to Change

I don’t know anything about the airline industry from a business standpoint, just as a customer that has done heavy travel for most of my career, with over 2 million miles of travel.

There has been a lot of discussion and rumors about Southwest changing its open seating policy, and I think it is time for it to change to match changes in business, and more importantly changes in society.

Back in the mid 1990s I had a year when I flew Southwest every single week for a year.  I was working in Houston for a company that had a big project in Dallas, so every Monday morning I got on the 7am Southwest HOU-DAL shuttle, and usually came back on the reverse shuttle the same afternoon.  That shuttle still runs both directions every hour, and if you get to the airport early you just hop on the earlier flight, get there late just hop on the next one, easy as pie.

Since it is a short flight – 45 minutes wheels up to down – back in the 1990s the afternoon flight had a big ice chest outside the gateway with ICE COLD BEER.  Instead of a stewardess coming down the isle, taking an order, returning with your suds, and you trying to down the beer in the 10 minutes remaining, you just picked up your beer as you got on the plane!  It was awesome!  Of course back then the stewardesses were all young and pretty, wore short-shorts during the hot Texas summers, and everyone on the plane from crew to passengers were basically having a good time.  Those shuttles were 99% businessmen back then (maybe a few women) and very few vacation travelers, kids, or people who normally frequent Greyhound bus terminals.

Alas those fun days are gone.  Today’s Southwest experience always has screaming kids, derelicts and weirdos on every flight.   For some reason, while assigned seating doesn’t mean those people WON’T be seated by you, it seems with the open seating the percentage chance of the person next you being the screaming kid or 300 pound behemoth seems higher.  Maybe since there are no higher price assigned seats like other airlines, there is no subtle caste system that puts better quality people in the economy plus and business sections (and people who seat their undisciplined screaming kids in business class should be shoved out the door without a parachute at 30,000 feet)

What I am saying is the class of people flying has dropped dramatically, but so has the class of the average American.  Besides most Americans becoming fat lazy slobs with tatoos, everyone is self-absorbed and think nothing of playing phone videos without headphones, screaming over the phone, letting their hellion kids disturb everyone around them, blocking aisles in airport throughways, and so on.  With most people in society not fit to be around in close quarters, Southwest should go back to assigned seating and put the bus people at the back of the plane together, like the rest of the airlines.

Southwest also used to be the low-price airline, but I have not seen them beat anyone on price anywhere there is direct competition.  This means I only fly Southwest when there is no alternative, and grit my teeth during boarding as I wonder how overweight and how much of my seat companion I will be in constant contact with over the next 2-3 hours.