Scott McCartney's Spet 10 online column has results of his informal survey of frequent fliers:

What Makes a Good Airline?

1. On-time performance

2. Fair pricing

3. Adequate seat room

4. Friendly, helpful employees

5. Frequent flights and direct service

6. Elite-level frequent flier perks

7. Assigned seats

8. Fast check-in/automation

9. Clean planes

10. Food


Clearly, Southwest understands these customers, having nailed the first 5 items. (Their on-time performance is worse these days, but frequency of flights tends to help out.)

This goes back to one of the advantages that Jet blue has. Their highest fare is still reasonable and you don't feel that you are getting ripped off flying on short notice the same way you feel when you ended up paying $1200 for a ticket while the donkey sitting next to you paid $250. You never feel that you are getting ripped off on southwest and jetblue.

Delta, are you reading this???

I have difficult ranking those because a lot of them are non-negotiables for me. Is "A" more important than "B"? No. But "A" is certainly as important as "B".

Using the list above, for example, I would rarely fly an airline without 7 and 9; but by the same token, 1 and 2 are so very important. Would I fly an airline without 6, even if it excelled in 1-5? No, probably not. I guess what I'm saying is that my rankings are "different", they're just not possible.

------------------
"There are those who travel, and those who travel well."

Southwest has nailed "direct flights" ???

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

biggest laugh i've had in ages

Southwest has "Nailed" adequate seat room?

HA HA HA HA!!!!

Second biggest laugh I have had in ages.

Djlawman

Southwest's older planes are a bit cramped, but the newer ones (the majority of the fleet) have better pitch than anyone but AA. It's the luck of the draw which type you get, though. (Almost all aircraft are configured for 137 seats, and the newer cabins are longer)

On the left it shows you're "from" NW PLat, but it does show where you're from geographically. If you think NW has nailed direct flights instead, you must live in MSP or DTW or MEM or such, no?

We who live here on the west coast think NW is a total joke for direct flights to anywhere BUT MSP or DTW or a couple other places. In particular, if you want to fly on NW from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, you have to go through MSP halfway across the country, but you can do it direct on WN. Same for Los Angeles to Silicon Vallye, to Phoenix, to Las Vegas, to Reno, to Albuquerque, to Tuscon, to Sacramento, to Albuquerque, to Salt Lake City, etc. Ie, I think what NSX meant is that Southwest has nailed direct flights on rasonably short distances where they make a lot of sense, whereas the networked carriers insist on routing everyone through one of their hubs, no matter how much sense (for a nonnetworked carrier like Southwest) it would make to fly directly.

(And while I realize that Continental or Delta may have other hubs, which of them have hubs at Los Angeles that make direct flights to all those cities I listed of possible?)

And lest you think that I picked Los Angeles because it's a Southwest hub, no it's not even close. Although Southwest has no true hubs, the closest things they have to hubs in the West are Las Vegas and Phoneix. Most all cities in the Southwest network have a much bigger variety of direct destinations than just about any non-hub city in Northwest's system or the systems of most of the networked airlines.

The networked airlines only offer an illusion of great direct service: It's only great if you live near the hub airport of one of them, and then it's only great on that one (perhaps along with its partners). But Southwest's direct service (at least to many regional destinations) is great at dozens of airports around the country, and I don't think any of the networked airlines have that many hubs, do they?

Well, NW flies through SAN-YUL with a stop in DTW! That is a good one, if you are going that way!

I just flew RT from PDX -> HPN (Westchester). Yes i had a layover in MSP. But so what?

On Southwest I can fly into Hartford... drive 90-120 minutes to my destination... Have 2 stops on inbound and 3 stops on the outbound... and I have to leave at 8am instead of getting in a full workday. to make that 8am I would need to get up at some freaking stupid hour to make that -- up to 2 hour --drive to Hartford!

I am not interested in flying 2 or 3 stops and 12 hour mega trips.

If I want to fly up and down the west coast I fly on Alaska ... my NW status gets me in First much of the time.

I'm sure there are business travelers out there who fly Southwest because they want to... i've yet to meet one. Everyone I've ever talked to about SW says that they avoid them like the plague.

That's not to say that SW isn't a working business model. I actually invest in them... even though I won't fly them. I simply understand that I am not in their customer market segment. I fly an airline that wants me as their customer and get me virtually anywhere in the world I want to go. whether for business or for pleasure (using my FF miles).

[This message has been edited by doglover (edited 09-12-2003).]

ATA is listening, see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum...ML/007110.html

joe

I'd beak the list down into 3 groups;

What I need to fly an airline = 2,6,7,8

What I prefer to have = 3,5,9

What I don't need = 4,10

I'm agnostic when it comes to 1

How about getting your luggage there at the same time you get there?

------------------
Free Frequent Flyer Miles