Originally Posted by
seat38a
Reading through all of the horror stories at Southwest, I was reminded of the 2 times where United booked me on American and also proactively booked me on Air Canada just in case my flight was late. Flew home ORD - LAX on American and didn't end up having to use the Air Canada reservation and just flew my originally booked ORD - YYZ flight.
Also saw an article on why Southwest is having a total meltdown vs the big 3 and the explanation was that the big 3 use a hub and spoke model which vs Southwest's point to point which spreads the flight crews all over the place. Sure First Class food sucks on United and Polaris isn't where it used to be but I think I'll stick to United and Star Alliance.
No amount of free checked bags and folksy, funny etc. FA's can make up for the operation mess that seems to plauge Southwest when the weather goes bad.
Total meltdown indeed. I am a big Southwest fan and hope this wakes them up to modernizing their backend IT infrastructure. Imagine if United could just improve their ground and inflight customer service to Southwest levels. United would be firmly rooted as the number 1 option. I think it's getting better as more of the older employees retire and are replaced by youth -- but I'm based in CLE and all I get are the very rude dinosaurs. I flew Jet Blue for the first time a bit ago and it made me appreciate how good United actually is.