Tag Archives for southwest airlines.
In late May American Airlines CEO Doug Parker had a personal interaction with a Southwest Airlines flight attendant over race that went viral after he flew the airline and was carrying the book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism which had been recommended by a board member months earlier, but that he’d put aside distracted by the coronavirus crisis.
He and his wife continue that conversation.
Chase has one of the most lucrative credit card offers we’ve seen for the premium Southwest Airlines business card. It’s a great card as I’ll show you in a moment but let’s first look at the initial bonus offer for the card, meant to make a really big splash and it does with up to 100,000 points as an initial bonus, which in 2020 is enough to earn a Companion Pass. When you earn the bonus you have enough points for a Companion Pass even under standard rules that return in 2021.
Southwest Airlines is offering a 20% discount on Rapid Rewards points redemptions when you book by September 17 (Thursday) for travel through October 31, 2020 with promo code SAVE20NOW. This makes your Rapid Rewards points go farther, worth more.
So if you even think you might want to travel in the next six weeks, Southwest is a great choice and booking with points is better (for those not chasing status or a companion pass) than booking with cash.
Last month Southwest kicked an autistic three year old off a flight for not wearing a mask. And then a week later JetBlue kicked a two year old off. Now Southwest has joined the two year old club, kicking a woman and her two year old son off a Fort Myers – Chicago flight on Saturday. The boy was “snacking prior to takeoff and wasn’t wearing his mask.”
I’ve been overall a pessimist about business travel, but Southwest’s CEO takes it too far, arguing that he “wouldn’t be surprised to see business travel languish for a decade before it gets back to 2019 levels.”
Sure, he’s signaling that with their relatively strong balance sheet and largely domestic travel exposure they’re better-positioned than rivals to withstand a long travel recession. But we’re already starting to see cracks in the ‘indefinite work from home’ model.
The popular narrative seems to be that United, Delta, and American ‘eliminating change fees’ hurts Southwest Airlines. Southwest hasn’t had change fees, and this takes away one of Southwest’s advantages.
Other airlines still have their advantages over Southwest, from premium cabins to lounges, but those are the same as before. What’s different in the new environment is a growing cost advantage for Southwest, and most people misunderstand what ‘no change fees’ on United, Delta, and American means anyway.
What makes Miami surprising is that it’s the type of market the ‘old Southwest’ would never have entered. They already have a huge operation in Fort Lauderdale, and a smaller one at West Palm Beach and while they aren’t exactly the same markets there’s huge overlap. Southwest always favored the less expensive airports, and avoided congested business hubs.
Miami is one of the more expensive airports to operate from in the U.S. This was, if not an explicit policy of pre-merger American Airlines to drive up airport costs, something that their management sat by and was ok with happening – because it chased all the low cost carriers to Fort Lauderdale. That’s changing.
Southwest Airlines – along with other carriers – has noticed an increase in passengers treating flights as ‘BYO’ and drinking their own mini bottles they bring through security while on board.
Airlines have stopped serving alcohol in coach (and in some cases first class) both as a cost saving measure and to limit interaction between passengers and flight attendants. So passengers have taken the matter into their own hands.
According to an internal memo the airline is onto the tricks customers are using to pretend to comply with the mask requirement and they’ve got procedures for that. Two year olds will now have to wear masks. And perhaps most significantly, there’s no longer a medical or disability exception to the mask requirement – anyone who cannot wear a mask (or remove their mask themselves) is simply not permitted to fly.
With United warning of possibly furloughing up to 40% of employees and doing something similar it’s worth underscoring just how successful it appears Southwest Airlines to be as it works to reach a goal of not furloughing anyone at all.
Southwest Airlines has made the most generous offer to its employees to take an ‘early out’ or an extended leave.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
