I wanted my first post to be positive, or at least have a good ending. I recently had occasion to contact Southwest Airlines using the "E-mail Us" link from the web site, and I was impressed with the response. Here's a summary of what happened:

On a completely full flight that was running late, the last open seat was a window seat next to me. I was in the middle seat sitting next to my buddy on the aisle. The last person to board, accompanied by the gate agent, was a man of considerable size. The gate agent and one of the flight attendants asserted he could take the window seat. At that point, I considered my options of either confronting the gate agent and flight attendants about not following COS policy or having my space encroached by another passenger's girth. Based on circumstances that do not have to be detailed here, I went with the latter choice and spent a 2-hour flight with someone encroaching in my seat space. The gentleman could not put the armrest down (which I showed the flight attendant as tactfully as I could), and I questioned to myself whether his seatbelt was actually fastened or just tucked in at his waist. The flight segment wasn't unbearable, but it was somewhat awkward and uncomfortable. To be honest, I wasn't nearly as upset with the space encroachment as I was with the gate agent and flight attendants for not following policy and for putting me in the position to either confront them and create a new set of circumstances or accept the current circumstances.

The day after my return (a Friday), I contacted Southwest Airlines through the "E-mail Us" link. If you have not used the link before, it asks for flight number, departure and arrival cities, and confirmation number, so I feel confident they can easily reference individual flight details. I sent a concise message outlining the situation. That was it. I didn't rant; I didn't ask for anything; I just thought that the situation should be addressed so that it can be avoided in the future. Two days later (a Sunday), I received a thoughtful response to my message. It may have been "form" paragraphs pasted together, but it seemed liked someone actually read the entirety of my message, understood the difficulty of the situation, and empathized. The response was profusely apologetic and detailed what should have happened in the situation. And, unsolicited, they refunded the cost for the entire one-way journey (not just the segment with the issue). The tone of the entire response seemed sincere, and I was impressed with the quality, professionalism, and speed of the response.

I look forward to posting more in the future (and yea, I've been reading FlyerTalk for nearly 5 years).