My family and I took a trip on Southwest Airlines last weekend, and from the perspective of a parent traveling with small children, it was a big let-down. Gone are the egalitarian days when the first person who showed up got to board the airplane first and a family got to pre-board. Actually, gone is any concern for a family traveling at all.
At first there was just online check-in, so the people who thought to check in on the internet got on the plane first. But I guess they figured they needed to cater to business travelers more, because now there's special pre-boarding group (that you have to pay for I think). And the new rule is families get to board after the first sixty people board the plane (provided the family isn't lucky enough to have group "A" boarding passes). I guess the point was to keep families from taking the seats up front before the people who waited in line for boarding group "A" get a chance. But the point of family boarding is to give the families some more time to get settled. Southwest would rather have the families fight past everyone jockeying for overhead bin space.
And about the changing tables? On one of our flights there was no changing table at all, and on the other the only changing table was in the lavatory at the front of the plane. The problem is you can't wait at the front of the plane anymore (new FCC regulations). So you have to wait until the occupied light goes out, then race down the aisle of the plane, baby in hand, to get to the lavatory before someone who is sitting in one of the seats in front of you decides to get up to do their business.
Flying with kids is difficult enough. If you've got a choice, I would avoid Southwest.
You people are all a bunch of whiners. You CHOSE to have children. Do you really think it's FAIR for you to just waltz on board first in front of a bunch of other people who were at the gate early and on-time?
This is, as Southwest has said, a simple issue of fairness to other travelers. I've been lined up early only to see a stampede of 50 people pre-board leaving those of us not traveling with children completely screwed when it came to our choice of seats.
You had kids. DEAL WITH IT.
Posted by: Audrey | June 04, 2008 at 10:00 AM
I probably will choose not to use SW airlines if I travel with my son mainly because of the hassles in which I have read today. I would not appreciate the hassle of having my children sitting between strangers on a flight. If I was traveling with a young child who could not be lap child would you make him sit far away from me? I think not.
And Audrey. Deal with it?? I'm not going to deal with it. I have a child and I should be allowed the same respect that business travelers get. I don't see that in any of the above statements. I know that travel is becoming more business oriented. I work in the hotel business and we try to accommodate both the traveler on business and the traveler coming on family vacation making memories. And the memories people will be having of SW will be of the hassles and of people like you Audrey. Would you like to be treated unfairly? Before you speak I would please feel the other side of the coin dear.
This just shows that people don't have common courtesy to move for a woman with children. And yes I know that this is not controlled by SW. However, by taking certain precautions this could be avoided and thats great CUSTOMER SERVICE!
Posted by: Jessica | June 04, 2008 at 10:36 AM
Jessica, you're living in a dream world.
And you're a hypocrite.
You write "Would you like to be treated unfairly?"
No I wouldn't and your insistence on preferential treatment by pre-boarding is unfair to everyone else.
Your hypocrisy is hilarious and pathetic. You have a child--it was your CHOICE TO HAVE CHILDREN and I'm not about to be stuck in a middle seat because of your CHOICE.
Posted by: Audrey | June 04, 2008 at 10:50 AM
This is silly.
Posted by: John Rhodes | June 04, 2008 at 04:59 PM
Audrey I don't live in a dream world. I'm living in a world faced with more and more obstacles as a parent. I can't expect to sit next to my children on a flight. Among other things that this is not a forum for. I chose to be a mother, like my mother and my mother before her. Like your mother did. You have no compassion. I'm not asking for preferential treatment I'm asking for a bit of empathy and to understand that people do fly with children much to the chagrin on miserable people like you. I'm not being a hypocrite. And if I am its cause you are not being empathetic.
What about if I were flying with a mentally or medically challenged adult would you have gotten up and moved if that were the case? And how would you have felt Audrey to have been 7 years old and to have been on a flight between two men you never met because someone didnt move.
Posted by: Jessica | June 05, 2008 at 11:09 PM
I am traveling to Disney on the 14th with my husband, my 9year old daughter and 11 year old son who had insulin dependant diabetes. I didn't know about their boarding until after the flight was booked. I tried to call because i don't want my son sitting by himself and they couldn't help me. I asked about boarding early and they said they don't do that. I am really stressing out about this and beginning to regret going to Disnay.
Posted by: Karen | June 09, 2008 at 09:14 AM
I traveled on Southwest this past weekend and was very disappointed in the service. For one they didn't allow preboarding for family with a small child. Which I got over that really quickly. Our daughter is nearly 2 and I didn't think we really needed that convenience when there are many other parents who have newborns and such.
2nd, On the flight home there was a mother flying alone with newborn 8 week old twins and all the gear she needed to do so including a double stroller, two car seats, diaper bag etc etc. They would not even let her preboard. I was appalled! I thought Southwest airlines as a company is rude and disrespectful. When a gate attendant sees an obvious need to make someones travel experience convenient and smooth as possible they should have the authority to accommodate such a need. This was a prime example and they did not even care. I am quite sure they lost some customers after tonights flight just on the observation of this particular situation.
Posted by: heather | June 10, 2008 at 01:10 AM
@ Audrey. If only you were 5 again, seated on a flight for a couple hours between two strangers. Perhaps your parents would be seated several rows behind and in front, with no idea what was going on with you.
You sound miserable and bitter. Sorry for your woes.
Posted by: phillippa | June 12, 2008 at 01:45 PM
Katie,
HAHA. You try waltzing anywhere with a child on your hip or in tow. I'm surprised by the lack of empathy displayed by people who were once children. Simply amazing. Maybe your problem is that no one showed you what empathy looked like when you WERE a child, so you have no idea how to display it.
Posted by: DianneS | June 12, 2008 at 04:49 PM
I recently traveled SW with my 2 y/o by myself. She has special medical needs that require a feeding pump. I was juggling her, a feeding pump, a backpack and a small stroller and was frustrated that there was no family preboarding that would allow me to board early and start getting settled (I needed to stow our gear, get her in a seatbelt and hook her up to her feeding pump all before takeoff). The flight attendants were unsympathetic and somewhat rude and I ended up feeling embarrassed about asking about preboarding. I also worried about not finding 2 seats together.
Meanwhile, there was another family with 3 small children traveling together who were also fretting. They ended up NOT being able to sit together. The mom sat with one, the dad sat with one, and the oldest (maybe 5) had to sit across the aisle and up one row from his mom with 2 strangers.
I was very disappointed with Southwest's service for families and don't plan to travel with them again with my child.
Posted by: PsychMamma | June 12, 2008 at 07:04 PM