I think that SWA got some money in the bailout, but I don't think that they asked for any, and I don't think that they lobbied on behalf of the bailout boondoggle.

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I've always liked SWA. One thing that should be noted is that althogh the CEOs of other airlines get some 30 million dollars a year, the CEO of SWA gets by with a paltry 1-2 million a year. They know that the employees aren't stupid enough to bust their ass and take pay cuts while the CEO is getting bonus after bonus. If only more airlines followed suit we wouldn't have leftists crying about the evil capitalists stealing labor and the dispaity of wealth.

The most successful always seem to run counter to the herd.

Southwest makes you feel like they're glad you fly with them, and they make it easy to do business with them.

If SWA goes where I'm going, I'm going with them.

I just flew Southwest from Oakland to Orange County and back this week. Theey seem to be just about back to normal - the planes were nearly full. Southwest will always get my business first.

Thanks for the inside info.

I love to fly on Southwest. I especially like their 'get on, sit down, shut up, and hang on' philosophy.

Hooray for Southwest!
The other airlines have GOT to change the way they do business. Nothing makes sense, from ticket pricing, to customer service, to schedules. The status quo is status no-go.

and the potential hit to the US economy if the majors shut down, you'd change your mind.

I understand that my views are not popular, but I do not think that they are a cheap shot.

• How poorly must a multi-billion dollar business be run so that the loss of a few days revenue threatens its existence? Why did this affect some airlines so much and others not so much?
• The market will provide, and a bankruptcy of at least one of the majors was due within a few months anyway. All we bought for our billions was a delay in this, some continued inefficiencies, and perhaps a change in which of the bigs goes out of business.
• Planes and routes lost due to a failure of some (all) of the bigs would quickly be filled in by others as the market demands.
• Heck, at least when we bailed out Chrysler we got something in return -- the U.S. Treasury wound up making something like $300 Million on that deal.
• Who do we bail out next? The insurance companies? Where does it end? Whose jobs are important enough to be saved despite the market not supporting them?

  Oh, and not that it is relevant, I do not now, nor have I ever worked for any airline. I used to have a travel job (for a software house) that involved a lot of flying trips, but that ended when I moved out of the Peoples Republic of Maryland last year.

All I know is that when my son needed a ticket to go to Maryland to report for duty in the Navy, it was cheaper to buy a round trip ticket than a one way, and to fly from Austin to Dallas to Baltimore rather from Dallas to Baltimore directly. Cheaper by hundreds of dollars, not $4. It made NO SENSE.

If all the other majors except for Southwest went belly up, prices on Southwest would be so sky-high you wouldn't believe it!

This ignores the fact that the market abhors a vacuum. The reality is that Southwest could never exist without competition because the death of ALL of the other majors would lead to the spawning of many new competitors.

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I accept Southwest being described as having less in the way of services, but I'm not sure I would describe it as "lower quality".

As CS mentioned above, blame good old "Fort Worthless Jim Wright" for that one. Texas elected him, by God, and he severed them well. (Sorry for the pun.)

Perhaps that is something that might come out of this deal with the airlines, an opening up of some otherwise relatively closed airports. Heck, now that National is closed to anything over 155(?) passengers there might be an opening for some more competition there.

For the bad impact on the DFW economy caused by the Wright amendment check out this article.

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