News and notes from around the interweb:
- Hidden trade line: Goldman Sachs isn’t reporting Apple credit cards to credit bureaus.
- Singapore Airlines award deals book in October for November travel: San Francisco – Singapore business class for 66,500 miles; New York JFK – Frankfurt – Singapore coach for 28,000. Singapore is a transfer partner of Chase, Citibank, American Express and Capital One.
- Southwest, which once managed to turn aircraft in 10 minutes – letting deplaning passengers out the back while boarding new passengers from the front – is looking at new ways of boarding to speed things up. Today average turn time is 42 minutes, which is great by modern standards.
By lining up passengers in advance, and sending them onboard to scour for seats, everyone gets on the plane quickly and wants to grab a seat right away. They say their reservation system can handle assigned seats, but it’s not on the current agenda.
- The UK government wants to have bankrupt airlines keep operating to fly passengers home.
- Charlotte airport is going to be a mess for awhile so might as well sit back and relax in a rocking chair.
- Vancouver hotels winter deal is back book by November 17 and stay by February 29, 2020 to get visa gift cards worth $50, $75, $100 or $125 per booking plus $50 for each additional night booked with promo code VISA.
- Serial stowaway busted again with this much practice you’d think she’d be better at it.
Except for the people meandering up and down the aisle towards the end of boarding looking for something that is not a middle seat.
I love pushing and shoving to get a seat
Speeding it up should turn it into a mob riot onboard
Time to fly Southwest of course
And it’s very attractive to see hundreds sitting on the floor in Las Vegas with no airline.clubs
Very premium experience
The first 2/3rds of Southwest boarding is easy and fast
The last 1/3rd takes forever and is very stressful
I’ll fly them if they’re cheap and easy AND I get the A boarding group
Otherwise, no thanks
Unless its a short haul I find SW overpriced on many awards and do much better in competing programs .I do like their cancellation policy for that they truly deserve some LUV 😉 🙂
And their FAs are pretty awesome and for sure they offer a value in some select markets to their credit.But rarely a discount airline they try and position themselves as
I would def fly them more if they had seat assignments
“Southwest is flying infinitely more flights”. I hate to be the boring math guy, but that would really be awkward to see in practice. Note that if every millionth of a second there were a departure from every blade of grass in the world, that would be a lot of flights, but would not be “infinitely” more flights.
In any case, I don’t mind Southwest’s boarding procedures if I’m in group A, or even early in group B, but otherwise they’re not so great. On the other hand they have other policies I do like, so it’s not necessarily a go-to airline, but I don’t avoid it either.
Real value added (sarcasm) — BIG headline about SW supposedly revamping its boarding policy. But then no details, no hints, no clues whatsoever as to what may or may not be afoot. (except that they won’t go to assigned seats)
I MUCH prefer WN’s boarding process over that of the conventional airlines. I usually fly for business and a lot of trips are booked only 2 or 3 weeks out. Nor is the company going to pay for business class (which is the norm for 99% of us). Thus, without elite status, you end up getting assigned some crap seat like 38B – despite having plunked down $700 for a 90 minute flight.
Southwest doesn’t do me like that: I generally can get an A boarding position and after that it’s up to me to board on time and to choose a seat with the legroom I need. Even traveling with family really hasn’t been a problem with them. Those who whine about their process are either spoiled elites from other airlines or they simply don’t understand how it works and how it can be very beneficial.