OPNLguy

Turns out 157 was my flight on Friday, and the flight in question operated on Thusday.

As best as I can determine, the aircraft was inadvertantly over-fueled which made it overweight for the short flight. Although STL has some long runways, the flight's weight wasn't limited by takeoff, but limited by landing at the destination. Just about any airline flight less than 2-3 hours in duration is going to be landing weight limited.

When a last-minute overgross situation occurs, the usual solution is dependent on the how overweight the aircraft is. If it's not very much, a last-minute route change might be in order, like, say, STL to MDW via longer route via DSM. If the amount of overage is significant, the solution is to reduce the weight of aircraft, and that's usually accomplished by defueling.

There are certain regulations and procedures that must be followed when defueling operations take place, and whether or not passengers are permitted to be onboard are subject to a couple of variables. I don't know the exact extent of the overage on the flight involved, but the initial confusion was probably due to getting those variables nailed down into a firm decision.

LegalTender

Defueling at the gate without precautionary disembarkation appears common:

Flight Delayed Due to Too Much Fuel

Defueling Delay

Might need to make sure ground equipment isn't near the area of escape slide deployment.

NextTrip

Won't SWA give your boarding pass back if you ask after scanning it? I thought they only collected them because it was faster during the boarding process and then threw them away when the flight closed.

smmrfld

Sure, they'll give it back to you if you ask. A1 is the only pass that they ask you to keep and hand to an FA when boarding so that they can identify the first general board pax. I've noticed this is occasionally changing lately due to the proliferation of electronic BPs...instead, several times the GA has kept the BP and asked me to tell the FA that I'm the first general board pax.

alggag

Every time I see people complain about gate agents keeping your BP I just assume that it's a throwback to the days of the plastic boarding cards. Add that to the fact WN uses open seating and that you don't need your BP to double check your seat assignment on board means that generally speaking there's not really a reason to hand them back unless you specifically need it for your own book keeping. Even then it seems that every flight I'm on there's always one or two passengers looking for seat C27 (or whatever their boarding position was on their BP).

That said, last month when I flew to Mexico City they did detach and return the stub from the BP both in San Antonio-MEX and Mexico City-SAT. Even then it would seem to only be useful in filling out the immigration card to see the date and flight number.

Often1

Paper boarding passes just like WN.

But, the agent either scans it or you scan it yourself and retain it.

The paper BP no longer serves any accountability purpose and the count is kept electronically.

For what it's worth, I doubt that there are many people who would include their wallet in the term "carry on" and, to be frank, even if a wallet is included in the term, I can't imagine leaving it behind for 5 minutes or 5 hours.

Peoriaman1

LOL I'd forgotten we can retain them elsewhere.

For a moment there I was worried you had meant the other airlines had gone mobile devices only.

lougord99

You wouldn't and I wouldn't, but obviously quite a few on this flight did.

Peoriaman1

That would be me. I use a big Think Tank camera/roller bag and there's a slot in it that's perfect for my wallet. It goes in there as soon as I'm done with it at security. Probably not the smartest idea ever, but I hate sitting on it for the entire flight.

glg

I usually put my wallet into my carryon when going through security, so it's zipped in my bag instead of sitting in one of the little bins or something. While I usually pull it out before boarding, I have forgotten on occasion and it's sat in my bag for the whole flight.

ursine1

Needing to remove fuel is not unusual. Deplaning everyone to do so is.

MrMan

I have been deplaned to remove fuel on AA

Doc Savage

I'll ask again. When is the last time you flew WN? Ever?

Allan38103

The three most useless things in aviation are:

Altitude above you
Runway behind you
Air in your fuel tanks

(Except that is possible to have TOO MUCH fuel for a given flight.)

Don't even try to read and understand every requirement, exception, clause, loophole, condition, etc. that apply to the procedures for adding/removing fuel for a commercial flight. The regulations take PAGES to describe.

Accept the fact that of all the possibilities (change the route, remove some cargo/baggage, remove some passengers, cancel the entire flight, etc.) the decision was to offload fuel. The fact that SW handled the outcome poorly is simply a self-inflicted wound. That probably goes into their "lessons learned" file.

OPNLguy

Precisely why I didn't, since some of the variables are which 737 variant is involved, which tank(s) the excess fuel is loaded in, and the amount of excess fuel in that tank (or tanks).

..and before someone asks, 737s can't dump excess fuel while airborne, since the 737 doesn't even have a fuel dump system installed, nor is it required to...