Southwest Airlines tips

Mary MacCarthy and her 10-year-old daughter, Moira, had just deplaned at Denver International Airport when two Denver police officers met them at the gate, calling them by name and notifying them that they had been reported for suspicious behavior.

Southwest Airlines is one of the most popular airlines in the United States thanks to its friendly flight attendants, and its two-free checked bags policy, the open seating onboard the aircraft and the low prices. The airline also likes to offer sales on its flights, and there’s a new one that travelers are getting excited about. For the first time, Southwest Airlines has launched a buy one, get one 50% off on base fares.

Southwest manages to succeed where most companies, and airlines in particular, fail, selling a mediocre product, at a price that is rarely the lowest, racking up an industry-leading record of profitability, all the while maintaining a firm hold on the hearts and minds of its customers. Very few companies make so many people so happy so consistently.

Warren Buffett, one of the world’s best known and most successful investors, has a wildly variable relationship with the airline industry, dating back to his ill-timed investment in USAir, in 1989, which underperformed his return-on-investment expectations. He’s been a fierce critic of the industry ever since, regularly fulminating against airline investments, as he did in this 2002 interview with The Telegraph:

Southwest Airlines recently concluded a series of tests designed to speed up flight boarding, and you could see some changes to the boarding process in the near future. A spokesperson for Southwest told SmarterTravel that the tests were conducted over the past several weeks at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Here are some of the changes that were trialed:

Between flight delays, cancellations, high prices, and over-sold planes, flying has been rough for a lot of people in 2022. If you’re flying Southwest and get to choose your own seat, a row to yourself is one small win. And one guy has a an interesting (read: awkward) way to make that happen.