In the fall, I was first to report that Southwest Airlines would end onboard service earlier, and make passengers stow their laptops earlier. They argued that requiring passengers to prepare for landing when a flight descends to 18,000 feet instead of waiting until 10,000 feet promotes safety. United has moved to requiring passengers put away laptops away earlier, too.
This means less time where service is available on board, and as a result Southwest is cutting drink service entirely on some flights.
As a result, the airline has now decided to class a slew of new routes as ‘express service’ flights, in which a full beverage and snack service is scrapped and only coffee or water is offered.
Traditionally, Southwest has offered its ‘express service’ on flights less than 175 miles in duration but we are likely to now see this extended to all flights with a flight time of less than 40 minutes.
Paddle Your Own Kanoo offers flights that lose service, but that would have had them in the past:
| St Louis (STL) | Chicago (MDW) | 40 minutes | 251 miles |
| Kansas City (MCI) | St Louis (STL) | 35 minutes | 237 miles |
| Las Vegas (LAS) | Los Angeles (LAX) | 40 minutes | 236 miles |
| Las Vegas (LAS) | Santa Ana (SNA) | 40 minutes | 226 miles |
| Las Vegas (LAS) | Burbank (BUR) | 45 minutes | 223 miles |
| Baltimore (BWI) | Pittsburg (PIT) | 40 minutes | 210 miles |
| Houston (HOU) | San Antonio (SAT) | 40 minutes | 192 miles |
| Austin (AUS) | Dallas (DAL) | 40 minutes | 189 miles |
Southwest began as an intra-Texas airline, flying routes between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Drinks are part of the airline’s DNA, stemming from Wild Turkey-drinking co-founder Herb Kelleher.
They were allowed to operate and set their own, low fares, prior to deregulation by not flying outside the state’s borders. Just as the carrier was gaining traction, the Civil Aeronautics Board began allowing ‘experiments in price competition’ ahead of deregulation. This let national airlines match and even undercut their pricing. Southwest had to innovate, and in 1977 became the largest liquor distributor in the state of Texas, rewarding customers on expense accounts who paid higher fares.
So while not offering drink service on 40 minute flights seems like a modest change, it’s still a significant shift for an airline that seems to have largely lost its roots. To me, though, the loss of work time onboard is the more significant passenger effect of this change.
Having flown 40 minute flights before, principally YUL to YOW or the reverse, I can say that I really don’t need a service at all. Water is a nice to have, but that’s it.
I fly a lot of 45-minute flights on a Delta Connection route operated by SkyWest. Almost always in first-class. Tight connections have always kept me from going to a Sky Club. Now, I’ll visit less with the access changes. So, it’s really important to me to get the required pre-departure beverage and then another drink in-flight. It never ceases to amaze me how many flight attendants are lazy and don’t make an effort to serve a pre-departure beverage or an in-flight drink. Air France and KLM, among other European airlines, can serve a whole meal (albeit a cold meal) on flights of 1 hour.
Go to an hour flight. We will all survive or hand you a water and bag of snacks when you board.
Delta went to the Skybus service on 1 hour flights and others.
On Delta shorter flights with the Skybus service: Water or coffee in back. C+ can get alcohol but not a Coke. FC usually gets a drink and snack.
Smaller planes got full service in the past. They are flying larger 737-900s and have up trying to provide full service. That would mean larger cabin crews.
No more meal and upgrades to first class?
Then die of thirst for 40 minutes I’m out
@Raphael
Agreed. The smaller 8 oz. bottles are perfect for this. Hand them out at boarding, or pre-place them at each seat. For those all concerned about ‘efficiency’ these days, this is it.
Unless you are crossing a body of water, like a flight from FLL-NAS, flights under an hour save about 4-8 hours of highway driving, so like FLL-TPA.
@FNT Delta Diamond
You poor fella. I hope you get your two ‘required’ drinks.
Blame ‘lazy’ flight attendants? *deep sigh*
Based on your comments here and elsewhere, I can only imagine how you hoard (or simply discard) your Diamond/Platinum ‘job well done’ certificates (they’re only worth about $5, but still).
My dude, as a fellow Delta Diamond, you give us a bad name. ‘Do me a favor, please–will ya–would you do me a kindness’…treat people better!!
Let’s distinguish between beverage service and prepare the cabin which means FAs need to ensure passengers are prepared for landing, including storage of laptops, tray tables/seatbelts etc.
UA has the same “prepare the cabin at 18k feet” as standard process as WN does. Other airlines do not but may on an operational basis.
WN has added a number of new short-haul spokes similar to what DL operates out of ATL and AA does from CLT or AA/UA/WN have from ORD/MDW – which means that drink service won’t happen – that is just a function of the flight length.
Many coach passengers won’t get a drink or snack on those flights. Only carriers that consistently give pre-departure beverage service help first class passengers. WN doesn’t give PDB service and AA is known for a low rate of compliance.
All of that is still different from storing seatbacks/seatbelts etc
Anyone can bring their own beverage including water. You cannot choose to recline, use your laptop on a tray table etc past the “prepare for arrival” unless you want to risk getting in trouble.
No biggie. I fly a short route from Minneapolis to Milwaukee after traveling Delta Airlines from Montana connecting in MSP. There is nothing served and the flight is short enough that it does not matter. If one can’t go 40 minutes without a drink or snack then it is a personal (psych) problem!
40 minutes? This should apply to any flight under two hours.
The only “whiners” about alcohol drink service will be the alcoholics. If you can not go without alcohol for 40 minutes – you have a problem.
I personally don’t mind this either — I usually try to fill up my water bottle before flight(s) for emergency thirst purposes.
Co-sign the water bottle idea. Would be nice if you could grab one upon boarding like you do alcohol wipes. In general I feel small bottles are better as you can take them with you and they deal better with turbulence.
I personally likely cannot be productive in any meaningful way on such a short flight so I usually try to relax, take a nap and decompress, maybe watch an episode of a TV show.
Year ago when I lived in NYC I flew ISP/BWI ($29 fares) to visit family. There was always a beverage service. FAs often passed out the peanuts ahead of time but always got the service done. This is cost cutting dressed up as something else.