I've had so many "random acts of kindness" on the part of Southwest that it is more of the norm. Nothing huge, just friendly people that realize that flying is a hassle and make the best of it. One thing I do every so often is to buy a round of drinks for the plane using the drink coupon books I get with my free tickets. I think if you tried that on any other airline the flight attendents would not allow it. On Southwest they have fun with it.

A couple of years ago in the winter I was scheduled out on an early flight out of St. Louis or Kansas City, I forget which. I had one of their $19 tickets, a sale on the internet. I decided that the weather was just so bad I didn't want to get up earlier to make sure I would get to the airport on time. I called reservations to see if there were seats on the later flight. The person on the phone told me there were seats, but I would have to upgrade the ticket to take the later flight. She even noted my seriously low fare. I told her, yeah but the weather was really bad and I would rather have some extra sleep than take the early flight. She then put me on hold "to change the reservation". I was on hold quite a while, which seemed strange, and when she came back she said she had talked to her supervisor and because of the weather they changed my ticket without a fee. Needless to say I was floored.

Another time I had a $300 voucher that they had put an incorrect expiration date. I was buying tickets at the Tulsa airport, and the agent told me it was expired. When I showed him how it had to be a mistake - it had an issue date of a few weeks ago, the computer put an expiration date, before the issue date of the voucher. The argument of how could a voucher expire before it was issued worked. Anyway, he listened to my story, said that made sense, made a call to some help desk to get it approved and the problem was solved in just a few minutes. The entire time the agent was apologizing for "their" mistake.

Another thing I like is Southwest's attitute when you use a free ticket, or your Companion Pass. On other airlines many times they act is if they are doing you a favor by giving you a "free" ticket. Never mind you flew upteen thousand miles and had to take a crappy connection to find award inventory.

On Southwest more often than not I get a "way to go, a free ticket" or some other remark where they seem pleased that you are using a free ticket. I guess they realize you flew 8 times to get that "free" ticket and understand that they shouldn't treat you like dirt because you took away a revenue seat. On the Companion Pass I used to take my wife on many of my business trips to nicer places. Again when they were taking care of the paperwork, and there used to be additional work for the agent when you used the Companion Pass, they were always very nice, and sometimes nicer
than when you were on a full fare paid ticket.

I'm wondering if one of the reasons Southwest stays profitable, even with low fares is they have never forgotten that it is because of their passengers they are in business. Seems like basic common sense, but I do think many of the Legacy carriers have forgotten this.

Southwest ^ ^ ^