Staying Southwest

My first experience with Southwest Airlines was almost four decades ago, in the mid-1980’s.

My next experience with Southwest will take place next month, when my wife and I plant ourselves in a couple of seats on a Southwest flight to Phoenix, en route to a family wedding reception.

Despite the airline’s well-publicized problems over the holidays, we’re staying with Southwest.

When a company has done right by you over the years, you try your best to stick with them.

Yes, I know what happened with Southwest over the Christmas holidays was a blinking mess -- with thousands of flights cancelled and tens of thousands of stranded passengers saying “no more” to the airline.

Had we been in a similar situation, we might be saying “no” too.?

But I don’t think so.

For us, and for millions of other travelers looking to get from here to there without spending an arm and a leg, Southwest has become ingrained in our travel culture:?a hard habit to break. ?

Our “brand loyalty” began in 1985, when a group of office mates and I got word that this relatively new airline was starting service from where we lived at the time - St. Louis - to New Orleans.

The fares were obscenely low, and hey, it was New Orleans. So, a bunch of us – all in our mid-20’s -- decided to give it a shot and book ourselves on a promotional, “get-acquainted with Southwest” flight to The Big Easy.

When we stepped aboard the plane, we knew this airline was going to be different from the others.

Per the Southwest model, our morning flight originated one hour earlier in Chicago. On this flight, Southwest was offering free drinks – whiskey sours – to passengers.?Our fellow travelers, from Midway Airport, were flying awfully high without a plane by the time we boarded, greeting our group with boisterous, rather lubricated calls of, “Hey! Welcome aboard! Great to see ya! How are ya??” in their distinctive Chicago accents.

Friendly lot, they were.

Yes, this airline was going to be different – as different as Southwest’s CEO was during the airline’s halcyon years.

His name was Herb Kelleher. I once attended an address delivered by Kelleher, and it was the craziest, most enjoyable speech I’d ever heard delivered by a CEO. With “no smoking” signs clearly displayed near the podium, Kelleher – sans any notes or script – fired up cigarette after cigarette, took sips from a tall glass of Scotch, and proceeded to regale his audience of about 75 people with anecdotes about how he built his airline, laughing heartily and sprinkling his remarks with f-bombs throughout the hourlong “speech.”?

This was at 8:00 am.

Again, different. But only like night and day.?

By the time the 2000’s rolled around, I was employed at the Boeing Company, and traveling by plane 26 weeks per year for my job.

My work took me from Phoenix, Arizona all the way to Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta, LA (Ok, I made up the Atlanta part, but the rest is true).?

Almost every flight I booked was on Southwest.

Southwest flights were almost always cheaper than their competitors. I always made sure to mention that to my bosses – the ones who signed off on my expense reports. I also reminded my bosses that Southwest bought and operated only Boeing 737 airplanes, and I wanted to reward the air carrier for that.

But the truth was that I flew Southwest because the airline had an incredible frequent flyer program at the time: four credits got you a free flight. You earned a credit for each flight you took, and a half credit for each hotel and rental car reservation. So, you were 75% of the way toward a free flight after just one business trip!

And man, did I use that little perk to my advantage.

My wife and kids accompanied me on a few of those business excursions. They got to Disneyland and went surfing for the first time ever, thanks in part -- a big part -- to Southwest.

Later came the period in which my son and daughter were looking at colleges to attend. My kids saw their old man coming, parlaying those frequent flyer miles into trips around the country. My daughter and I flew SWA to check out colleges in Los Angeles. My son and I did the same to investigate universities in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The dad-and-child bonding on each trip was something none of us will forget. For the record, my daughter went to LA and never looked back – she’s lived in California for a decade and has a great job there.

All those trips on Southwest led to something else too.

In 2005, a neighbor boy died suddenly and unexpectedly, so a scholarship was set up in his name at our kids’ elementary school. We needed to raise money, so we raffled off a trip – free airfare included – to see a spring training baseball game in Florida.

Seeking to have the travel portion covered, and noting what a loyal customer I had been over the years, I wrote a letter to Southwest.

They wrote back.

And included with their letter were two free tickets to anywhere the airline offered service.

Maybe the best part of the Southwest experience is that they seem to have fun on the job, or at least they try to. They know that flying can be a stress-inducing experience, so they attempt to diminish the angst by doing fun stuff.?

Sure, the flight attendant who cracks jokes while delivering pre-takeoff passenger instructions, or sings to passengers just before deplaning might be a bit much, but at least they’re making an effort.

Which brings us to August 21, 2017.

Remember the big news that day?

It was in all the papers.?And on TV. And radio. And on social media.

It was everywhere.

The “Great American Eclipse,” as it was called, was a solar blackout that was visible in a band that spanned from coast to coast, representing the first solar eclipse in 100 years that could be seen across the entire U.S.

People traveled from miles around to get a glimpse of the phenomenon from the ground.

I witnessed the event from 30,000 feet in the air – on Southwest Flight 1375, departing at 9:00 am in Seattle and arriving a few hours later in St. Louis. I literally was in the air, on the exact path of the eclipse, at the precise time the event was unfolding across the country.??

While some airlines were blasé about the eclipse, Southwest embraced the moment, handing out special viewing glasses and offering “cosmic cocktails” on our flight. They brought a meteorologist aboard, to give us a little scientific perspective on the event. The pilot got FAA approval to “bank” the plane a bit, so passengers seated on each side of the aircraft would get a good view.

They even made a video about it, and (shameless plug here), I appear in it!!?I just wish I would have shaved, and had been, like, more articulate.

So, while many people curse Southwest for what happened this past holiday season – with justification of course – many of us will be cutting the airline some slack.

One reason Southwest’s holiday travel troubles got so much attention is because of what it has become over these last 40 years: one of America’s biggest airlines, with more than 700 aircraft flying up to 4,000 flights per day and 123 million passengers per year.

Southwest isn’t going away. It can’t, and analysts say it won't.

Southwest has become too important a component in America’s collective travel experience. Too many people have gone too many places and had too many positive experiences - at a relatively low cost - to turn their backs on the airline in the face of a really bad few days in December.

We’re staying with Southwest. So, it would appear, are a lot of others.

As always, thanks for reading.?