MARCH SCHEDULE NOW BOOKABLE.....SO GO SOMEWHERE!

Happy FRIDAY everyone (my birthday weekend, no less)! Here are replies for the last four of you. Charles Nash — Thu, 10/15/2009 - 12:11--Charles, we know you Midwesterners love the West Coast of Florida. Unfortunately, more service to Tampa, as well as connecting service to Ft. Myers, is all we can offer. CMH-RSW is a very small market in its own right--however, for next winter (meaning winter/Spring Break 2011), it might be an excellent Saturday service candidate! Anonymous — Thu, 10/15/2009 - 14:21--As in the response to Charles--SLC-FLL is a very, very small market. For the time being, I hope our connecting service (not to mention the smiles and friendly faces you get on Southwest!) will be enough! Julian — Thu, 10/15/2009 - 22:01--Julian, "Schedule Geek" is a term of endearment around here, and is one that I wear proudly!!! Thanks! And finally, Anonymous — Fri, 10/16/2009 - 08:51--As my mother would say (and did say, MANY times!), "that's the reason they make Fords and Chevrolets." Meaning--there is no single product or service that everyone, everywhere likes. So, you're free to have your opinion, and you are welcome to it. I personally and wholeheartedly disagree with you, however--I am *not* a fan of either of those two airlines' service, comfort, or people. I'll take the friendliness, camaraderie, and occasional flashes of humor of my Southwest Family over any other airline, anywhere, anytime. Thanks, guys....have a good weekend! Bill Today we started accepting bookings from March 14 through May 7, 2010.  Party on, Spring Break!  Hippity-hop, Easter!  Hello, Passover!  Time to plan a trip and book something.  LET'S GO SOMEWHERE! Categories: Customers Posted by: Bill Owen | Oct 16, 2009 at 1:17 pm

MARCH SCHEDULE NOW BOOKABLE.....SO GO SOMEWHERE!

Good morning, all! A few more replies to your comments. Anonymous — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 10:05--I understand your disappointment, but you're comparing apples and oranges. We've been in PHL quite a lot longer than we've been in DEN; this is a case of trimming unpopular service in an established market vs. adding new service that is forecasted to be successful in a new market. Plus, one thing DEN has going for it that PHL can't is the ability to supplement local traffic with connecting and through traffic. SouthwestFreak — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 13:50--while I don't pretend to know much about our fares, you might use the "Southwest Shortcut" to show you alternate days of travel that might help lower your airfare. Have a great trip, and take a dramamine for me! Anonymous — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 14:18--we'll open the rest of May on December 17th. You can always find the date the next schedule "chunk" will open at southwest.com on the "Travel Tools" tab. Anonymous — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 18:16--we do have onestop, direct service in the March schedule--flight 606 leaves AUS at 5:30 pm and arrives PHL at 11:05 p.m.; returning, flight 420 leaves PHL at 10:55 a.m. and arrives AUS at 4:05 p.m.. Plus, we have many, many other connecting itineraries available for you. strz — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 22:53--way, way out of my field of knowledge here! But I'll pass your comment along to my friends across the hall at .com. scottnearsmf — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 23:10--thanks! And finally, to mf — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 21:25--listen, bubba, I haven't been to a deck party in ages, and if I even attempted to play volleyball it would register on the Richter scale. Clearly, what you don't know about what codesharing can do for an airline would fill a space the size of Guam. I have neither the interest nor the strength in trying to change your mind. I'll just say, clearly, and unequivocally: you're wrong. Completely, 100% wrong. And I state that based on (1) over 30 years in the industry, (2) being involved tons of analysis both pre- and post-operation of our ATA codeshare, and (3) because I'm on the SWA International Codeshare Committee--just got out of our weekly meeting, in fact. Not sure what crawled up your gullet and died, nor do I know what your angle is--but I'll say it again--you're wrong. Lunchtime here in Big D. Later!! Bill Today we started accepting bookings from March 14 through May 7, 2010.  Party on, Spring Break!  Hippity-hop, Easter!  Hello, Passover!  Time to plan a trip and book something.  LET'S GO SOMEWHERE! Categories: Customers Posted by: Bill Owen | Oct 15, 2009 at 11:23 am

MARCH SCHEDULE NOW BOOKABLE.....SO GO SOMEWHERE!

Good morning all! A few additional responses to your comments: Anonymous — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 16:59--two answers to your question. One, all new markets (and even new flights, meaning increased frequencies) have a development time in which they build towards profitability. In the past we've been willing to wait longer for new service to turn that corner--in some cases, a LOT longer. However, in today's economic environment and with today's costs, we can't wait as long as we used to. And two, we're taking a rather different eye towards these things nowadays. It's not just about individual flights or markets; it's about the network as a whole. We're being neither as draconian nor as idiotic about this as those "other guys" out there, but with new and well-calibrated tools at the Company's disposal we have a much better view to the way things hang together....or don't. Hope that helps and doesn't confuse the issue! Robert S — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 17:29--GREAT comment, and all of your points are spot-on. Thanks for noticing the spacing in our schedule--our schedule optimizer was designed specifically to space flights as evenly as possible. As to winds--the difference in winter between the eastbound and westbound winds tends to be significantly more than at other times of the year, so we don't get as much benefit from the tailwinds as we take hits from the headwinds. However, you're also correct in that the variability is so much higher in winter that we have to schedule heavier--meaning block times are set at higher percentiles than we normally would at other times of the year. And yes, there is a little (very little) increase in very early and very late flights, but the majority of the added flying really is due to the decrease in needed block time in the Spring! Mitch — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 17:56--thanks so much for the support. And let's hope that our stock price soon will go from "dinner at McDonalds" to "dinner at The Mansion"!!!! Alex Trude — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 19:16--stay tuned! Kevin — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 19:21--Kevin, we absolutely pay attention to the size and to the demographics of catchment areas for airports we're evaluating. The "Southwest Effect" is alive and well, thank you very much! JJ OMA — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 19:37--JJ, to say we're thrilled with our reception of our new service to/from the Twin Cities is a huge understatement. We'd love to add service to MANY new cities from MSP; it's just finding the airplane time to do it. We're working on it! And finally to Becky — Wed, 10/14/2009 - 00:59--be nice, now.... Later, guys! Bill Today we started accepting bookings from March 14 through May 7, 2010.  Party on, Spring Break!  Hippity-hop, Easter!  Hello, Passover!  Time to plan a trip and book something.  LET'S GO SOMEWHERE! Categories: Customers Posted by: Bill Owen | Oct 14, 2009 at 9:47 am

ARE YOU READYYY…For Your Hell’s Kitchen Surprise?

Kim-----oh, if you only had a category open for Southwest Employees! You know how many foodies our Family has..... Good luck to the winners--both of Hell's Kitchen and of the contest!!!! Bill Well, tonight’s the big two-hour finale of Hell’s Kitchen, where we’ll see which chef Gordon Ramsay picks to run Araxi Restaurant in Whistler. The season’s flown by! It seems like just a few weeks ago that Kymberli and I were in L.A. for the taping of the season premiere, crying over spilled shrimp.  Categories: Customers Posted by: Kim Delevett | Oct 13, 2009 at 7:06 pm

MARCH SCHEDULE NOW BOOKABLE.....SO GO SOMEWHERE!

Happy WET afternoon, everyone! (Only two dry days so far in October in Dallas. Our feet are webbing...) A few more responses: New city requests in general--we're looking at everywhere, guys, to make sure we're making the right moves. But we're not in growth mode, in that we're not growing the size of the fleet--so any added cities or frequencies come at the cost of reducing others. Anonymous — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 11:17--look again! This schedule adds nonstops from Ontario to Chicago/Midway! Brenda — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 11:33--Brenda, not sure why you were getting that. We should have been open at 10:00 CDT--but I just checked and it's open now, so have at it! Frequent Flyer — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 11:35--Our nonstop STL-SLC-STL service is cancelled effective November 1st this year. David — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 11:47--David, I could spend most of the rest of this afternoon discussing your comment point by point, but I don't have the time; however, let me point out that our schedule moves (whether they're additions or deletions) are in response to either forecasted results or actual, historical ones. We never discontinue markets that are profitable; in the case of ones that we've eliminated from Nashville, they were cancelled because they were not contributors, however much you claim they were "supported." May I also respectfully point out that the reason Nashville O&D's have remained as high as they are is specifically because of the large presence the world's largest low-fare carrier--Southwest--has at the airport. And finally, Anonymous — Tue, 10/13/2009 - 13:19--I'm VERY sad that we're NOT codesharing right now. Codesharing LEADS to growth. Opens up new markets to our brand of fare stimulation and gets us in places we'd never have gone otherwise. Like LGA. and BOS. And MSP. Oh, well....the end of 2011 can't come fast enough for me! Thanks, everyone....keep the posts coming! Bill Today we started accepting bookings from March 14 through May 7, 2010.  Party on, Spring Break!  Hippity-hop, Easter!  Hello, Passover!  Time to plan a trip and book something.  LET'S GO SOMEWHERE! Categories: Customers Posted by: Bill Owen | Oct 13, 2009 at 3:04 pm

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