Place: Old Chicago
Lunch: "Rush Street" Buffet (pizza, Caesar salad, cookie), Pepsi
Geez, I haven't been here in forever. They must have missed me...they put some seriously awesome pizzas out today. Probably in my honor.
Scratch one off the bucket list...Flying Southwest Airlines. I did so for the first time last week. You'd think an airline is just an airline, right? But Southwest is such a unique experience, I figured I'd write up a survival guide for it.
tesg's SURVIVAL GUIDE TO SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
(ahem)
Okay, so you "wanna get away". Which website are you going to go to?
a) Orbitz
b) southwest.com
c) The official website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The correct answer is: b) southwest.com. Southwest doesn't syndicate its fares anywhere else. It's southwest.com or nothing.
You've selected your itinerary and have a choice of multiple fares.
a) Business Select: $182
b) Anytime: $162
c) Wanna Get Away: $59
Which fare are you going to choose?
The correct answer is: a) Business Select. And the reason you're going to do that is because of the way passengers are boarded and seated.
Southwest does not assign seats. You could wave the sum of the lottery at them and they won't do it. Southwest assigns boarding positions. First on board gets to choose whatever seat they want. The better the boarding position, the best selection of seats. There's several boarding classes, starting with "A". Guess who gets in the "A" group?? Business Select, the highest fare.
But it doesn't stop there. You also need to check in as early as possible. Southwest allows you to print boarding passes online up to 24 hours before the flight. Plan on doing so exactly 24 hours before the flight, because the first person in your seat class to check in gets the first boarding position. You'll still be in group "A" if you paid for Business Select if you walk up to the counter and check in an hour before the flight...you just might be the last in line in your group.
Bottom line...If you're the 80th person on a Boeing 737-300, you're getting a middle seat.
Oh...it gets even better...Picking any seat in the plane only happens if you're on the first stop of the day. If your flight starts the day in Houston with stops in Denver, Salt Lake, Boise, and Spokane, and you get on in, say, Denver, a good 40-50 seats are already going to be taken. And those who were already on board and got a crappy seat on the first leg get to cherry-pick better seats before the new passengers board.
Better still, let's say you have a connection somewhere and your plane is late, cutting your arrival time to be within a few minutes of your connection. Don't worry...Southwest will wait for you (within reason), but everybody else will be seated and you'll be stuck with whatever seats are left, regardless of what fare you paid.
This is all important to know because Southwest couldn't book a half-sold flight to save their life. Of the four flights I took last week, three were COMPLETELY sold out...EVERY seat was booked...and one was within four or five seats of sold out.
Okay, so you're on board and you have the choice of any seat except for the guy in front of you in line. (And the only reason HE beat you is because the guest computer in your hotel lobby that is specifically there for people to print boarding passes was being hogged up by some old man playing Mafia Wars.) Where do you sit?
a) In front by the bulkhead
b) Somewhere in the middle of the aircraft
c) In the back to take advantage of the white trash drunken poker game
The correct answer is: b) somewhere in the middle of the aircraft. This was suggested to me by a Southwest flight attendant. She claimed that since the fuselage of a 737 is wider in the middle, the seats and overhead storage bins are slightly wider in the middle too. I can't vouch for the seats, but my carry-on definitely fit length-wise in the compartment over row 7 while failing to do so over row 1. And the front row seat has no under-seat storage and limits leg room compared to the regular seats.
Southwest's seats are:
a) Narrow and short of leg room
b) Reasonably comparable to other airlines economy class
c) There are no seats, you just strap to the floor of the aircraft
The answer is: b) Reasonably comparable to other airlines economy class. Maybe even better. They're leather, they aren't as narrow as people make them out to be, and legroom is excellent. The seat height seems lower than other airlines I've been on, which makes the cabin feel more open.
So you're seated and the plane is in the air. You'd like a refreshing beverage. Soda is free, but premium drinks (i.e. booze) are:
a) Available for cash
b) Available by credit card
c) Available to "Business Select" customers with coupon for a free premium beverage
There are two correct answers: b) and c). The flight crew does not take cash. Freaky, man. And this always causes problems with at least one passenger...the one who really looks like they could use a drink.
Southwest's flight crew is:
a) Of the upper crust in social status and snottiness
b) Dressed in hot pants
c) Wackiness ensues
The correct answer is: c) Wackiness ensues. Southwest's flight attendants DID used to wear hot pants back in the day, but they don't anymore. Probably a good thing since my first flight had an all-male crew.
On the flight from Denver to Salt Lake...where we arrived an astounding 25 minutes early...our captain's pre-flight greeting was followed by his co-pilot and somebody else doing a Homer Simpson "Woo Hoo!" in the background. Upon landing, one of the flight attendants demanded a round of applause for the flight crew. When she got a mediocre response, she declared "That was lame!" Upon stopping at the gate, the captain keyed the mic and hit his Staples "That was Easy" button.
(The gate attendant, by the way, was flabbergasted that we were already there.)
Anyway, it was an experience.
Now I want to fly jetBlue, but I'd really have to go out of my way from here just to find a jetBlue flight.
