steved5480

Yes, it is & yes, you are certainly correct.

Nothing to see here.

Now move along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsvbYKr19ng&sns=em

LockheedElectra

Interesting thread, but if I am Mr. A-lister, this is how I think. I travel often for business, and I'm loyal to SW, I have my small kids with me, and I want to sit together. Asking the GA to allow us to board together is not a big deal, as one of us is going to sit in a freaking middle seat anyway. Who should care? We have all tried to stretch the rules (let he who has not sinned cast the first stone). All those on this thread espousing SW's right to enforce the rules to the Nth degree miss the entire point of the SW experience (as they would have us believe it). I am totally in the corner of the father here, having travelled many times with my kids, and having airlines (particularly Air Canada) go above and beyond to allow us to sit together.

flyventure

No one is saying you can't board together. You can't however use your A-List to take advantage of the situation and cheat out those passengers who are playing by the rules. The rules are there for a reason to stop abuse from spiraling out of control. Just like blue sleeve abuse that was going rampant to the point they had to get rid of them all and go to a different disposable system. If you are worried about being able to all sit together, get EBCI for everyone. However it really isn't that hard and FAs will work with you if there is ever an issue to get everyone together.

danielonn

What a waste of time to delay a plane for a Tweet. Couldn't the agent be doing better things with her time than letting a Tweet ruin her day? I mean come on a passenger had a complaint about his children under the A+ Status and the agent clearly did not know how to think outside of the box.

All the agent had to do was to let the A+ member and his minor children board together. You don't want the kids and parents sitting in totally different locations in the unlikely event of an emergency.

This Gate Agent should rethink working for Southwest or an Airline .Heck remember this Sticks and Stone may break my bones but words won't hurt me. There was not one word that would be deemed threatening or unprofessional.

Clearly Southwest sided with the passenger as they apologized and gave the travers a $50 voucher for each family member.

I think the Gate Agent may be looking somewhere else for a job because working in Customer Service is a tough job. The passenger did not give the full name of the gate agent just the first name and last initial and Gate#. This is so Southwest can follow up.

The Gate Agent forcing the passenger to delete the Tweet is not cool. The Gate Agent will have a chance to explain later but the priority now is to board the plane and send it off on time not to delay the flight over some non issue. Gee can't the agent take some criticism?

If I were the Gate Agent and the passenger wanted to report me on Tweet I would have said Please feel free to do so as we can learn from these experiences and I apologize for not allowing your Children to board with you as an A+ member. We can change our policies and I'm glad you are bringing this to the attention of our Social Media Team.

Oreto

I feel that the GA was flexing her muscle and may have just been having a bad day when the customer in question "crossed the line." It reminds me of the SNL skit in the early 90's about Total ....... Airlines. Perhaps a change of employment is in order?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgu...nes_shortfilms

CGRA

Does a 4 years old child can wait and board by himself ??


DYKWIM PAX + DYKWIM GA + money maker /not kid friendly boarding Policy = 10 pages+ thread

dc2

I would rather have a family board before all the seats together are taken. Someone is asked to move to accommodate the family (and the flight will be delayed until it has been accomplished). So, someone with a lower boarding number may eventually end up with a less than optimum seating choice to accommodate.

And on the EBCI--what happens when everyone (who isn't already A-list or BS) pays for EBCI? Back in June, one of our traveling companions paid for EBCI and received a B-18 boarding pass. What happens when that is CXX?

saneman

You know what as someone who likes to make fun of WN's boarding process , I will actually say that it is no big deal to let the guy take his kids with him. Though one could also ask why can't the guy board with families after the A group. He can still find 3 seats together at the back of the plane.
This is WN's problem. If the guy was traveling with two grownup kids, guess what, he could have boarded early, saved two seats for his kids and the FA would take his side(at least from what I observed on my recent flight where she let some guy reserve row 10 for his buddies and actually used the word TATTLETALE to comment on anyone who would object). So this guy gets a worse deal by traveling with younger kids. So if the FA is going to let people like him reserve seats, the GAs might as well let the guy take his kids along.

I don't have any sympathy for either side here. Both overreacted. The GA could have stuck to her line that he board with the family boarding section, but she had no business doing what she did. And why was she checking tweets during boarding? As for the passenger, I understand perfectly what he was trying to do and the Ops agent could have given him a break. But he should also understand he was asking for a favor, and it wasn't his right to have his kids board with him at that position.

How about this as a compromise? If you board with one kid, you keep your position in line. If you have more than one kid, you get top priority over others in Family boarding. Hell, you might as well add more rules since WN seems to relish in adding more rules .

captiveguru

Best post on this incident. GA tries to purge a service complaint by threatening a pax. GA needs retraining. The rules need to be enforced, but it needs to be done in a professional manner.

freeflyin

No one suggested that a 4 year old board alone. The rule is 4 and under for family boarding. Everyone else is free to board together if they wish- at the position of the latest BP.

Orlando Vic

This will come back to bite SWA in the form of bad publicity which will be spread by word of mouth. Just saw the story on a nationwide TV news program.

NLO

It's been reported by the customer that his requests for "early boarding" for his children on previous trips had been accommodated by SWA. Not that I fly SWA much, but I too have been accommodated by SWA with this exact same request when I've flown with my daughter. Whether or not anyone agrees with the customers "ask" is moot. What's important is the retaliation from the SWA agent after he gave negative feedback via twitter. It's despicable. I don't believe the employee should be fired, but coached on how to respond or not respond in the future when faced with similar situations. If these types things are allowed to happen, it may be one us elite FT'ers that gets removed from a plane for no good reason.

trouble747

Families board at the end of the A group, regardless of their boarding pass. It would be virtually impossible for all the seats together to already be taken at that point.

LetsGoToo

This hasn't been my experience recently. I've seen once where the FA refused to help and another time the FA half heartedly asked for someone to move. Both times a dad with a little girl 10-12 didn't sit together.

There is a simple solution to this. Children 16 and under can board with families during family boarding. Southwest won't do this because they want families to purchase early boarding. That's really why this policy is in place.

LetsGoToo

Family boarding only applies when the children are 4 or under. This policy doesn't help a parent with an 8 year old.