Kacee

On the other hand, if you fly out of OAK and choose T1 security there are never more than three or four people in line. It's literally ten minutes from parking lot to gate.

dchen2

I have a love/hate relationship with WN.

I hate accruing miles(points) towards a program that doesn't offer the possibility of aspirational international premium travel, the already stated lack of PreCheck, and the free for all for seats since I frequently get to the gate after A has already started boarding, meaning I get stuck with the B group and a middle seat despite holding a low number A BP. And the scarce extra legroom seats.

However, not having to worry about the turboprop and no F CRJs is nice. And the WN planes have much less MX delays than UA planes. The no change fees, esp now the legacies bumped it up to $200 makes it, is pretty enlightening too.

WN used to be consistently cheaper 5+ years ago but now for peak travel times, WN pricing is on par with everyone else. Meh... long story short, tough decision to fly UAX on a CRJ200 vs WN mainline flight on the same schedule.

goodeats21

Give it time...give it time.

PV_Premier

sounds like this is completely your own problem and not much to do with WN. i have often held a mid-high B # boarding pass and still easily found a window or aisle seat toward the front of the plane.

aacharya

I think folks believe WN is cheaper, and they like not paying "again" for bags, even if UA was cheaper by $60 (cost to check two bags). It's irrational economics, but it is a model that people follow.

zabes64

Actually we should assume ppl are flying r/t and therefore UA would need to be $120 cheaper for 2 bags, $60 savings gets you 1 bag each way and $10 in your pocket.

LASUA1K

Yup, I had this option recently and WN got the money. 2 flights were crj200.

PTahCha

and BUR.

That's pretty much every airport terminal with dedicated (or mostly) WN presence. Like LAX T1.

UAL4life

But but bags fly free!

Regional jets for anything above 500miles and or very thin routes is a joke.

tods27

Of course, if you want to take an earlier flight same day on WN, you have to buy up to the most expensive fare. No standby without buying up.

mduell

I think your sampling is poor.

Per the DOT coupon data, passengers are paying a $40 round trip premium to fly UA mainline over Southwest and a $100 round trip premium to fly Skywest over Southwest.

LASUA1K

I think you forget UA does sell some first class seats which makes the numbers off. People like me do pay a premium to not fly Express, especially a 200.

Proof is WN came in and swept another route away from UA. In a year the route will have 4 non stop Express flights, and you will tell people frequency is more important, when all honesty, UA has loss another route.

dchen2

That's a good point. One good benefit is free SDC for elites. Though in this day of ever higher load factors, it seems the majority of my flights on both WN and UA are sold out, especially on the peak travel days.

hmy1

The UX creep into formerly mainline UA routes out of SAN has been going on for at least a year. First it was to SFO (but scaled back since) and then DEN. I'm surprised they haven't tried to put one to IAH yet...

mduell

There's no F on the CRJ-200 operated by SKW. CRJ2 coach gets a $100 premium over Southwest - people really do like frequency and are willing to pay for it.