[MontyCarloHall]

A related question: can Southwest ever fully recover from this? Their reputation had taken such a hit that many loyal customers will hesitate to fly with them again, and even more fairweather customers will permanently cross Southwest off their list of carriers to consider flying with.

Their stock price is only down ~10% since the meltdown, which seems extremely optimistic to me.

[mitchell_h]

Yes. I'm a very frequent flyer, and used to be far more frequent. No one, and I mean no one, flys southwest because it's their choice. "Southwest is the greyhound of the sky" is a well known phrase. You fly southwest because it's slightly better than being cramped on 3 legs of a 50-60 seat commuter jet. Your home airport dictates which airline you take. Unless another airline steps up and takes some of the routes & provides better planes, you're stuck with SWA.

[NegativeK]

> No one, and I mean no one, flys southwest because it's their choice.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I don't fly SW except to save money, but everyone else I've spoken to with an opinion on airlines loves to say how much they love the carrier.

Coworkers and I went to look at the sea of unclaimed bags yesterday, and I mentioned that SW has drastically underpaid ground crews and have flight crews sleeping in crew rooms in airports, and they said that they'd repeatedly heard how much flight crews enjoy working for the company.

I really don't understand the appeal, but it's definitely out there.

[ProjectArcturis]

I would rank SW roughly in the middle:

Alaska Hawaiian [Delta American United Southwest] (rough tie here) Frontier Spirit

It depends on what you value. If you always fly first class, of course SW is worse. SW does offer a lot of direct flights that no other airlines offer. For me saving several hours in not changing planes is worth a slightly worse flight experience.

Also SW doesn't gouge you when cancelling or changing flights, unlike all the others.

[kgermino]

Are you on one of the coasts?

In the Midwest I know a ton of business travelers (>1 trip/month) who default to Southwest. The weekly travelers tend to prefer the legacy carriers if they're available (so I'm sure there's something to your point even here) but IME Southwest rules the monthly/short notice flyers around me.

[jaxn]

Weekly travelers prefer legacy carriers because they get upgraded to fist class, have special phone numbers for customer service and rebooking, board first, etc.

[mastercheif]

I can anecdotally back this statement up via experience with frequent flyers based in Nashville.

[mitchell_h]

Home airport is STL, I normally fly to the coasts.

[kod]

> No one, and I mean no one, flys southwest because it's their choice.

Everyone in my family preferred to fly southwest (at least before this round of incidents). Among other things, this was based on a history of better customer service especially in extenuating circumstances. They've been at the top of e.g. JD power customer satisfaction rankings for years.

If you're trying to say no one flies economy because it's their choice... I could certainly afford not to, but I _choose_ otherwise.

[bluebird5567]

My boss likes seeing Southwest on my expense report because it means I’m saving money for the company.

I also enjoy the extra legroom on Southwest.

[mythhouse]

> "Southwest is the greyhound of the sky" is a well known phrase.

This had to be before spirit and frontier came onto the scene.

[iudqnolq]

In various parts of the US there are sketchy bus companies with unpredictable and unreliable service that are cheaper than Greyhound. One example is the busses between New York and nearby large cities. They tend to accumulate accident records, close, and re-open under a new name. Boarding involves standing in a scrum they vaguely measure.

[mythhouse]

> Their reputation had taken such a hit that many loyal customers will hesitate to fly with them again

zero damage. This will all be forgotten in a matter of weeks. ppl will continue flying with whoever has the best rates.

[ProjectArcturis]

Fully? No. Mostly, yes. They've definitely taken a hit, but most fliers have pretty short memories. Remember when this happened to Delta a few years ago? Most of the alternatives to SW are nearly as bad. In a year nearly everyone will be back to just choosing the cheapest flight.

[HDThoreaun]

People fly spirit and frontier all the time. The only thing that matters to many, many flyers is price. The airlines realize that so they all provide shit service, then people come to expect shit service and the race to lowest price continues.

[bluebird5567]

There are plenty of PR firms that will help them get out of this.