Ding...You are now free to move about the cashier's office

For anyone who has experienced it, the new boarding process at Southwest airlines seems more like a bizarre study in sociology than the time-saving seat selection protocol it was no-doubt designed to be. What was likely perceived as a clever way to use an alphanumeric system to facilitate a quick turn-around, in practice has less structure than the letters & numbers found in the next bowl of alphabet soup, especially for those of you not organized enough to check-in the night before.

Picture the scenario, your heart sinks in the cab upon realization that you are merely an hour away from boarding though you don't yet possess the coveted "A" tagged pass, so you leap past competitors in the ticketing line in a last ditch effort to score a late "B," with hope fading fast. It isn't until your late "C" number is finally called and the last of the token "today's flight will be a completely full" announcement fades that you consider the gravity of your error in not checking that roller-bag, which incidentally just seemed to swell by ten pounds and a couple of inches.

The early pandemonium you encounter on the actual plane through the single digit seats and teens is not a good sign of things to come. With center seats already filled, latches on the bulging overhead bins hanging on for dear life and the once jovial flight attendants strategizing as they sharpen their elbows, you begin your walk down the plank into one of the most uncomfortable feelings in current consumer life.

A weak and muffled "Oh, shit" is all you can manage to muster.

Facing this very situation on a recent flight back to Midway from BWI recently, I began searching my mental archives for similar capitalist situations where I was both, a paying-customer and yet so hating life. Some truly horrific images flashed by, including a sun-drenched two hour line waiting to get onto the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney in mid-July, or counting the hours near the women's dressing rooms on the third floor of Bloomingdale's because you thought it would be "fun" to re-do your wife's entire wardrobe a week before Christmas in New York City. Ah, Good Times.

Shortly thereafter it popped in there. The question of where in the automotive world do you all at once, have a pocket fun of cash and find yourself staring down at the twitching trigger finger of an old-school gunslinger on the other side of the desk. This was an unwelcome reality not long ago after the battery in our beloved car went and gave up the ghost after close to five years of dependent service. After a short exchange with our local AAA crew, I was actually feeling good about something I spend $$ on every year, though never use. The meeting with service advisor at the local dealership a couple hours later would bring me right back to reality, however.

Now, I am not sure what type of reverse psychology he was going for, but he tried to gloss over and make me feel better about the fact that our particular vehicle used a battery that would cost over $200 to replace by explaining that they had "fortunately" turned up some other unforeseen issues during a routine check.

Thank goodness we came to you!

The total of those general maintenance items, $984 and change. (Read: Thank you sir, may I have another.) For effect, they showed our car through the window on the hoist with a mountain of greasy parts littering the ground underneath. Second opinions an impossibility, and options dwindling, I begin to curse that damn battery that moments before was a savior.

Now, I consider myself a student of all things automotive and have an obvious affinity for fixed operations (who doesn't?), yet even after forcing them to go through the trash to physically show me the torn CV boot and all other line items on the bill, I didn't have a leg to stand on. Of course, there may be instances on the sales side of the store that can also catch you off guard (as there are in a thousand other emporiums of corporate America in action) I couldn't help but find a significant similarity in the way I felt when I finally reached the back of the plane, sweaty, swearing with suitcase still in hand as I did in that garage holding what I thought looked, felt and smelled like a perfectly operable spark plug.

So, the lessons to be learned. Check-in early and if that isn't possible, suck it up and check your bag. And if you happen to find yourself squaring off with someone who sees dead batteries everyday for a living, tell them to skip the extra stuff because you have a plane to catch.

    * The average Soutwest Boeing 737 has 40 "center" seats.       
    * The Company’s fleet has an average age of about 9 years.    
    * The average aircraft trip length is 633 miles with an average duration of one hour and 48 minutes.    
    * Southwest aircraft fly an average of seven flights per day, or 13 hours per day.    
    * Southwest was the launch customer for the Boeing 737-700 in 1997. Southwest was also a launch customer for the Boeing 737-500 and -300 series aircraft.    
    * Southwest has almost completed updating its traditional gold, red and orange paint scheme by adding canyon blue. All new aircraft will have the updated colors and interior. Existing aircraft are being retrofitted.    
    * Performance-enhancing Blended Winglets have been added to our fleet of 737-700s, and all new 737-700 aircraft arrive from Boeing with Blended Winglets installed. Additionally, Southwest began installation of Blended Winglets on some of our 737-300 aircraft in early 2007.    
    * Southwest received 284,827 resumes and hired 3,363 new Employees in 2006.    
    * In 2006 Southwest served 61.5 million cans of soda, juices, and water; 10.9 million alcoholic beverages; 5 million bags of pretzels; 93.8 million bags of peanuts; 16 million snackpacks; and 35.4 million other snacks.    
    * Southwest consumed 1.6 billion gallons of jet fuel in 2006.    
    * In 2006 Southwest moved 265 million pounds of cargo and mail.    
    * The shortest daily Southwest flight is between Ft. Myers (RSW) and Orlando (MCO) (133 miles). The longest daily Southwest flight is between Philadelphia (PHL) and Oakland (OAK) (2,510 miles).    
    * Southwest has 1,133 married couples. In other words, 2,266 Southwest Employees have spouses who also work for the Company.

Comments

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