Jump to content

Southwest or Every other airline in the history of the world  

112 members have voted

  1. 1. Speaking of polls, I had sex with South_Austin's mom

    • Southwest boarding sucks
      64
    • Love Southwest boarding practices
      48


Recommended Posts

Posted
4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


Had a Brazilian airline pull that on us 25+ years ago (before smartphones and online booking). We show up in Buenos Aires for our flight home, 2+ hours early, and they tell us “if you run, you can still make it.” What? Yeah…they moved it up by 90 mins, we had 30 mins to check bags, clear security, and get to our gate. Fuckers.

At least you could still smoke on that flight.... 

Posted
On 8/13/2025 at 7:42 PM, Revolution512 said:

So you can’t make money running a shitty airline nobody wants to fly? Cheap asses looking for flights to Vegas don’t pay the bills?

I may be a degenerate gambler, but I ain't flying Spirit.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
On 8/18/2025 at 6:41 PM, billfromlaketravis said:

I assume United is the move for Houston to Denver? Work is making me do a back in October. It looks like United has both the earlier departures and latest returns. 

Yep. Almost all of my business flights are DEN - IAH/DFW/AUS.  United is the way to go.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
5 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Yep. Almost all of my business flights are DEN - IAH/DFW/AUS.  United is the way to go.

Keeps you out of C terminal as well. Especially lucky if you fly into/out of A and can skip the cattle car and walk

Posted
39 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Keeps you out of C terminal as well. Especially lucky if you fly into/out of A and can skip the cattle car and walk

Gonna be Terminal C. I’m getting in very early and coming back pretty late on Thursday. I hope I’ll be OK.

Posted
1 minute ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Gonna be Terminal C. I’m getting in very early and coming back pretty late on Thursday. I hope I’ll be OK.

Nothing inherently wrong with C, it's just the annoyance of having to ride the cattle car all the way out that way. 

I also like the newer gates and bathrooms that United has in B

Posted
46 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Gonna be Terminal C. I’m getting in very early and coming back pretty late on Thursday. I hope I’ll be OK.

Concourse C at DEN is what he was referring to, not Terminal C at IAH. You’ll be in/out of Concourse C at DEN if you choose to route WN HOU-DEN as opposed to UA IAH-DEN. Concourse C at DEN is a beating due to their clusterfuck of an airport train. “Hoooold on! This train is departing for all C gates.”

Posted
6 minutes ago, royiv said:

Concourse C at DEN is what he was referring to, not Terminal C at IAH. You’ll be in/out of Concourse C at DEN if you choose to route WN HOU-DEN as opposed to UA IAH-DEN. Concourse C at DEN is a beating due to their clusterfuck of an airport train. “Hoooold on! This train is departing for all C gates.”

Meh, there's little difference between B and C at DIA.  And you have to ride the train to A now as well.

Posted
4 minutes ago, kevwun said:

I like that Denver spent a gazillion dollars on a new main terminal that looks like a circus tent.

It has always looked like that.  The gazillion dollars was spent on the inside. New security is much better, though.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Posted
4 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

Meh, there's little difference between B and C at DIA.  And you have to ride the train to A now as well.

Any second saved riding on that piece of shit is worth it.

  • Like 1
Posted
14 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

It has always looked like that.  The gazillion dollars was spent on the inside. New security is much better, though.

Went through on Sunday. Huge improvement from before. The train to C took all of 3 minutes too. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

The amount of preboards nowadays is out of control. It’s like a whole other letter group unto itself. Is that going to change with assigned seats?

With assigned seats, I have a hard time caring how many people get on before me. 

  • Like 1
Posted
37 minutes ago, gernblansten said:

With assigned seats, I have a hard time caring how many people get on before me. 

It's a must to get on early if you have an overhead bag and don't want to be that guy swimming upstream to find a compartment or check at the gate.

  • Like 1
Posted
7 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

It's a must to get on early if you have an overhead bag and don't want to be that guy swimming upstream to find a compartment or check at the gate.

Este.  And I'm not checking my bag.

Posted
1 hour ago, Chewbacca said:

And you have to ride the train to A now as well.

The bridge to A reopened last week 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 2
Posted
On 8/17/2025 at 12:45 PM, TXSooner518 said:

Delta pulled a new one on me yesterday - randomly moved my flight 10 minutes earlier with less than an hour notice before flight. Was very unappreciated. 10 min may not seem like much but for a pre-8am flight with two teenagers, sucked. Had never seen that before. Always assumed it was kind of the same rule as a bus - it can be late but can’t be early.

Especially considering you have to check your bags 50 minutes early.   My friend showed up 45 minutes early and they wouldn’t let her get on the flight

  • Like 1
Posted
On 8/18/2025 at 7:08 AM, kevwun said:

Delta seems to change flight times more than any other airline we fly.

DFW changes gates like they are under foreign observation and they are hiding missiles.

  • Haha 1
Posted
14 hours ago, Iceman said:

DFW changes gates like they are under foreign observation and they are hiding missiles.

Ahh the joy of catching an airbus 321 in B terminal that used to only have regional jets. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 1
Posted

So about to hop a flight to Nashville and the gate attendant announced they don’t have enough bags checked for ballast in the airplane therefore they are offering to check bags for free..,

Have to wonder how often this happens now after the change in policy.

Posted
45 minutes ago, TxTower said:

So about to hop a flight to Nashville and the gate attendant announced they don’t have enough bags checked for ballast in the airplane therefore they are offering to check bags for free..,

Have to wonder how often this happens now after the change in policy.

I heard it both to and from Vegas last week

Posted
54 minutes ago, Aldo Raine said:

I heard it both to and from Vegas last week

They've announced the same deal on every flight I've been on the past couple of weeks.  Looks like it's a new AI predictive policy:

New SWA Gate Check Policy

Spoiler

Southwest could end up gate-checking more bags thanks to this policy

After Southwest changed its free-bags policy, it's inevitable that more people are going to try to bring carry-ons on board the flight. Sadly, the company is dealing with this in a way that could cause more headaches for passengers.

 "We’re using a machine learning tool that predicts the number of gate-check bags needed for each flight, which enables our teams to act early and keep the operation running smoothly," Chief Operating Officer Andrew M. Watterson said in a recent Southwest earnings call for the second quarter.

 Of course, if the airline is predicting early when it is going to need to gate-check bags, this could mean people have their bags snagged by an airline official and forced into being gate-checked, even if the overhead bins are not yet full.

 There's very little that infuriates passengers more than having their bags taken while boarding the flight, and then getting on the plane and finding empty overhead bins where they easily could have placed the luggage.

 Passengers are already complaining about Southwest Airlines gate-checking bags

Southwest passengers have already experienced this issue with bags being gate-checked, despite there being plenty of room on board.

View from the Wing reported on several passengers tweeting their anger over the last few weeks of July, with one X user, Steve Schoenherr, tweeting out, "Is this a new policy or a control issue to check bags for flights with many empty seats and compartments completely open at takeoff?"

Unfortunately, this is inevitably going to keep happening, as machine learning isn't perfect.

 

 

  

  • Like 1
Posted
2 hours ago, TxTower said:

So about to hop a flight to Nashville and the gate attendant announced they don’t have enough bags checked for ballast in the airplane therefore they are offering to check bags for free..,

Have to wonder how often this happens now after the change in policy.

Would be hilarious if they still end up checking the same number of bags that they used to, but the majority are done for free at the gate, eliminating the revenues after they've already alienated their best customers.

  • Like 1
  • Drool 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 2
Posted
2 hours ago, TxTower said:

Also - what’s up with the bamboo cups?

Bamboo is suitable replacement for traditional wood based paper products.  

I was more concerned that I got on a 737 Max a couple of weeks ago now that this airline is slaughtering itself.   

  • Like 1
Posted
17 hours ago, TxTower said:

So about to hop a flight to Nashville and the gate attendant announced they don’t have enough bags checked for ballast in the airplane therefore they are offering to check bags for free..,

Have to wonder how often this happens now after the change in policy.

I had a flight from Denver to San Antonio a couple of weeks ago where they did the exact same thing.  They began announcing they needed some volunteers to check in their bags at the gate because they were not going to have enough room in the overheads.   Funny thing about that is during take off, you could hear bags where I was sitting which was about mid plane rolling in the overheads right above us.  

Posted

Delta Air Lines is discontinuing flights between Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) and Midland International Air and Space Port (MAF) from November, which will mean exiting the latter airport entirely. The airline had flown up to three daily flights on this route since April 2024, but will operate its final flight in early November.

Data from the US Department of Transportation (DOT) shows the route had poor load factors that lingered under 60% last year. Hot on the heels of announcing an expansion out of Austin this week, many have commented that the flights to Midland-Odessa were primarily to maintain gate access at Austin ahead of future expansion plans.

Looking at data from aviation analytics company Cirium, the carrier will operate its final flight on November 8. This is Delta's only flight to Midland-Odessa, but Austin will continue to have a connection courtesy of Southwest Airlines, which operates one daily flight.

https://simpleflying.com/delta-air-lines-cutting-midland/

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Posted
On 8/22/2025 at 5:24 PM, Chewbacca said:

Would be hilarious if they still end up checking the same number of bags that they used to, but the majority are done for free at the gate, eliminating the revenues after they've already alienated their best customers.

They'll just start charging to gate check. Swipe your card here, sir, or you may exit through security and check your bag at the ticket counter.

Posted

Austin Airport Arms Race: After Delta Expands To 29 Cities, Southwest Threatens To Retaliate With 200 Departures A Day
 

Delta Air Lines is growing to 29 destinations out of Austin. Delta currently flies to 25 destinations from Austin. Along with their regional partners, they operate 22% of flights and offer 19% of seats out of the airport.

They’re number two behind Southwest, which offers 39% of flights and 41% of seats. The two carriers are duking it out to be anchor tenant for the new airport lease and use agreement as a new concourse gets built. Delta says they see themselves growing to Southwest’s current size in Austin.

But Southwest isn’t sitting still. They think they could grow by 50%. Austin Business Journal quotes Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan: (HT: Enilria)

[O]ur intent is to continue to grow our share of the market here…People are flocking to Austin because of the business environment and opportunities. We’re going to move capacity where the opportunity is, and that growth is here.

The ability to grow from 130 to well over 200 means we could just serve a lot more cities, a lot more frequency…Where we’re headed would make Austin the largest airport and largest service we have in the whole state of Texas.

Posted (edited)

Are most of the Delta routes going to be like their Vegas flight that leaves once a day at a bad time and almost always gets delayed? 

Edited by kevwun
Posted
On 8/22/2025 at 3:07 PM, TxTower said:

So about to hop a flight to Nashville and the gate attendant announced they don’t have enough bags checked for ballast in the airplane therefore they are offering to check bags for free..,

Have to wonder how often this happens now after the change in policy.

I had 4 Southwest flights in the past week and every one of them told C group they would have to gate check bags whether they wanted to or not.

I don't get why people are against gate checking.  It's literally waiting for you right there on the jetway when you get off the plane.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

Except when you're told it will be on the jetway, and it isn't, and somehow got tagged through to your final destination, so you don't have the carryon you prepped for a long layover during the layover, and no I'm not bitter about it fuckers.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted

It goes wherever the tag says it goes.  And unless it's a stroller, car seat, wheelchair/walker, or known medical device, that tag has a city code on it it's going to baggage claim.  

Posted
3 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

It goes wherever the tag says it goes.  And unless it's a stroller, car seat, wheelchair/walker, or known medical device, that tag has a city code on it it's going to baggage claim.  

Didn’t used to be that way, but I haven’t gate checked in forever. 

Posted

That must have been a long time ago.  Gate checks going to baggage claim has been the policy for many years (except strollers, car seats, etc..).  You might have lucked out randomly once or twice and they put the wrong tag on it or something.   I don't recall ever seeing an ordinary suitcase being brought up to the jetway unless it was tagged as having a c-pap or something in it.  That's usually a regional jet thing where the bins are so small that nearly everyone has to gate check so they bring them all up.  

Agreed that the new process sucks so far.  The algorithm telling them when the bins will be full seems to have a quick trigger finger.  The whole thing is an effort to reduce the turn times and avoid the delays from when people would get on with a suitcase and spend 10 minutes going all the way to back looking for bin space before having to go back upstream to gate check it right at departure time.  I get the intent, but clearly the algorithm needs work.  I've noticed a few people lately walk down with a gate-check tag on the suitcase simply remove the tag and board with it with bin space still available.  

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...