October 6, 2011

Southwest Airlines

I have been wanting to try flying Southwest Airlines for a long time because of their low prices and no fees for bags. Most of our flying normally is from Gunnison or Denver to Newark, NJ to see Joe’s family and at the time Southwest did not fly to Newark. This time however we were flying to Norfolk, to enjoy an O’Connell Family Beach Vacation in the Outer Banks, North Carolina.
I have to say that I LOVED flying Southwest. I am now a HUGE Southwest fan. Booking the airfare online was super easy and no stress. Then we arrived at the Denver Airport at 5am and we checked our 3 big bags at the curbside check in. At that time of the morning Southwest was the only one open for curb side check in. We had 4 people flying and could have checked 8 bags for FREE. We only check 3 but still it was so nice not to have to pay $75 for the bags.

In regards to boarding it was easy as well. With Southwest you are not assigned a seat. On your boarding pass it tells you when you board. There are 3 groups, A, B and C. I checked in the day before but I was never right on the 24 hour mark and for 3 of the 4 flights we were in the B group and one flight was the A group. Also since Lily is under 5 so we were able to board right after the A group but before the B group. Also, I don’t know what it is but by doing boarding this way everyone boarded the flight so fast. Normally on other airlines it takes a good 30 plus minutes to board the plane but everyone was boarded and we were pulling away from the gate in less than 20 minutes – Go Southwest!

Normally we fly United because United is the only airline that flies in and out of Gunnison year around. Over the past couple of years we have been flying out of other airports, and flying on other airlines because flying out of Gunnison is very expensive for a family of 4. Southwest has all airlines beat in regards to space in the cabin in the economy section. Southwest has all of the same seating, no first class, business class, economy plus, nothing like that. All of the seats are the same and all have plenty of foot room. I am a very short person, 5’3 ¼” and to me United has the least amount of space. If the person in front of me puts their seat back I cannot cross my legs. Southwest has plenty of leg room. The person could put their seat back and it did not bother me in the least. I could still lean over to grab my bag under the seat and cross my legs.

I do not have anything bad to say about flying Southwest. Now that they started flying to Newark you can better believe that my family will be regular Southwest fliers.

Check Southwest out at http://www.southwest.com/.

Have any of you flown Southwest before?  Do you like them/ hate them/ indifferent?