Southwest loyalists who dream of taking the low cost carrier to vacation destinations like Puerto Rico and Hawaii are one step closer to realizing their goal now that union officials have announced they reached a “tentative agreement” with the airline.
Of course, you may not want to start packing your bags just yet. Southwest has been rumored to be considering international flights for years, and the airline’s flight attendants still have to vote on proposed contract changes before the airline could begin flying to international destinations—which could include the Caribbean, Central America, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru. These are the same attendants who already voted down a similar proposal earlier this year, which means the deal is far from complete. Since the previous vote, Southwest has changed some of the rules it planned to implement regarding the pay, scheduling, and per diems for flight attendants covering international routes. Flight attendants will vote on these new proposed rules in early September.
It should also be pointed out that Southwest hasn’t announced any sort of timetable for introducing international flights. If the deal goes through, Southwest would be covering former AirTran destinations, including Mexico, Jamaica, and Bermuda. The airline would also be upgrading its current reservation system, which has earned the ire of many members of the FlyerTalk community in recent months with frequent outages and glitches during major airline sales.
So tell us, what do you think about the proposal? Would you be up for taking Southwest to international destinations?