Customers love Southwest heart service — it makes them smile and come back again
In an age when airline passengers are nickel and dimed constantly, when airlines seem to go bankrupt regularly, when changing a ticket costs a small fortune, when good customer service is hard to find, and when the fun has been wrung out of travel, Southwest heart stands out from the crowd.
Every other major airline — American, United, and Delta — has gone through bankruptcies, charges extra for checked baggage, forces passengers to pay exhorbitantly for changes to airline tickets, collects cancellation fees from their customers, and makes it almost impossible to figure out the true cost of travel.
Amazingly, when airlines have a choice of which airline business model to use — to choose the Southwest heart model that has provided a profit for every year of its existance or to select a business model that has failed, gone bankrupt, and still has losses on their balance sheets — new airlines end up selecting the failed model. I find this hard to believe and disheartening.
Why would a sane CEO of a startup airline follow a path to failure rather than focus on developing a clearly marked path to permanant profits and a history of no layoffs? It is a mind-boggling question.
Why do we love Southwest heart? Let me count the ways.
- We love the Southwest airfares that are among the lowest in the country.
- Every time Southwest begins flying to a new airport, the airfares drop. When Southwest does not serve airports on certain days of the week, it is reported that other airlines will raise their prices.
- We love being in control of our own lives. Getting reserved seats is fine, but being responsible for checking in on time means we only have ourselves to blame.
- We love being able to check two bags free of charge. No matter what other airlines charge, it will never be $240 less than a round-trip Southwest flight — that is the cost of two baggage fees round trip on other major airlines, unless passengers are carrying the right credit card or are elite frequent flier members.
- We love seeing an airline allowing families to board prior to the majority of passengers so that the parents and children can sit together.
- We love being able to cancel flights without extra fees. This saves us $200 every time we may have to change our minds.
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We love not facing $200 change fees to shift our flights by a day or only a few hours. Other airlines all charge hefty change fees and then add on the difference in airfares. Southwest collects no additional fees, but does charge the difference between the purchased rate and the rate in effect at the time of the requested change.
- We love seeing happy and helpful flight attendents.
- We even love the boarding process — far more organized, understandable, and faster than that of any other major airiline.
When airlines treat all passengers well, the passengers love them back.
Our thanks are our Valentine gift to you. And, the above is your Southwest heart that you show us every time we fly. What else do you, our readers, like about Southwest?
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 11 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
