What is Southwest airlines Nuts ?

Just as an aside...

I was Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA, the giant smile on the radome)
employee #521. Best college job a kid could have, four years with an
airline. Sold my car, used my savings bonds, bought all the stock I could
get my hands on at the employee sale the day before the stock went public.
Bought my first airplane AND house with the profits from that little deal.
(And that, boys and girls, is why RST Engineering's first product was called
the RST-521.)

Some years later at a banquet I happened to be sitting next to the Southwest
VP-Ops. We got to chatting and I found out that he had bagged a set of the
business documents when PSA went belly-up and sold out to US Air, who
promptly trashed the purchase. Seems that Southwest was built on the PSA
model, right down to the decision to have ONE airplane type in the fleet and
know that airplane inside and out.

Sure, PSA made a ton of money by putting butts in chairs; that's what paid
the kerosene bills. Sure, we packed the old Electras and 3-holers as tight
as we could, but we had fun doing it. We had stews (no, dammit, in the '60s
they were STEWARDESSES, not flight attendants) who would play guitar and
lead the whole danged airplane singing from SanFran to SanDiego, we had a
couple who were caricature artists, some who took on all comers in chess,
anything to have FUN flying.

Southwest still reminds me a lot of those days. If you don't like
cattle-call airlines, there are a lot of old stodgy companies still doing it
the old way. Reno Air (now gone), Southwest, a handful of other little
startups are doing it the way I think it should be done.

Jim





"Blueskies" wrote in message
m...

Southwest leads the pack for good reason. I have not had a good experience
on any of the 'majors' for a very long time

On 27 Dec 2004 18:20:33 -0800, "569" wrote:

That airline is pure hell. I used to travel 250,000 miles a year for
business, all domestic. I refused and still refuse to fly them. It's
no better then the Greyhound bus.

I have flown them several times. They are good at what they do, and I
try not to have any illusions about flying with them. I call them
"Cattlewest".

It's no different from any other airline. The show is about the day to day
issues the airline and pacs have. Grow up and get over it.

--
Jim

carry on

best i can tell, "airline" is a fairly accurate depiction of the joys
of airline travel complete with crowds of irritable (and irritating)
people mashed together in cattle-car fashion by irritating uniformed
minimum wage workers.

that's entertainment.

dan

RE Airline... I have never seen the program... And, I rarely fly the
cattle carriers as we fly ourselves as much as possible.. A few years
ago we were forced to fly out of Detroit - North West - and of course
our plane had problems (dumping hydraulic fluid all over the ramp as I
watched from my window seat)... So, we were unloaded, run to another
gate, got boarded, Sat there for 20 minutes then everyone told to get
off as that pilot would go overtime if he flew it.. Sent to another
gate, long breathless run to find no airplane there... By this time
the crowd attacking the little girl at the counter was chanting for a
hanging... People were swearing at her (elegantly dressed lady with
more than my net worth in jewelery hanging on her, was cursing like an
iron worker)... I got in line to the counter... When I got up there I
leaned forward so the others couldn't hear and quietly told her that I
had no questions, but she looked like she needed a break... So, I stood
there and chatted about her kids, and her husband, the family's dog,
etc., for a good five minutes, then went and sat down... When they
finally found a crew to fly the stray airplane they had dredged up, the
girl at the counter went over to the big guy at the boarding ramp and
whispered to him... He came over and boarded us on the plane ahead of
everyone and had the stew bring us hot tea and sandwiches at no
charge... Those minimum wages workers are victims just as much as the
customers are...

Denny

On 29 Dec 2004 08:39:22 -0800, "Denny" wrote:

People were swearing at her (elegantly dressed lady with
more than my net worth in jewelery hanging on her, was cursing like an
iron worker)... I got in line to the counter... When I got up there I
leaned forward so the others couldn't hear and quietly told her that I
had no questions, but she looked like she needed a break... So, I stood
there and chatted about her kids, and her husband, the family's dog,
etc., for a good five minutes, then went and sat down...


Well done Denny.

z