Yesterday on my post about flights between Dallas / Fort Worth and Milwaukee, the surprise of that investigation was that Southwest Airlines was most probably the best choice based on cost (price + baggage fees + convenience from doorway to doorway) and service (mainline aircraft and service product). 

Well, that got me to wondering about other routes out of the DFW area that I’m generally interested in.  So, I checked on flights between Dallas and Portland, Oregon, another city I have an interest in.   Southwest offers a number of two stop connections between the two destinations at competitive prices but your travel duration on those would be excruciating. 

However, Southwest *does* offer a couple of flights each day that are one stop – no plane change flights.  And guess what?  They’re pretty reasonable in flight duration.  Again, I cannot tell where that one stop is but it must be mostly right along the flight path.  Best of all, their price is about as good as I’ve seen in a long time at an advance purchase fare of $129 each way.  Again, considering that Southwest doesn’t charge for baggage and is more convenient in the Dallas area, this is the best deal all in all. 

American Airlines offers 5 non-stop flights a day (all 4 hour long flights using MD-82 aircraft) for the same nominal price and charges for baggage. 

And I have to tell you, I think I’d rather fly Southwest even with one stop.  AA’s MD-80 aircraft are woefully worn out, uncomfortable  and their crews are surly at best.  Southwest offers me a more comfortable seat, most likely a newer aircraft and certainly a better maintained cabin and a service staff that was happy to get out of bed that day and go to work. 

So, what does this mean?  Well, it’s hard for me to research every route that SW and AA might compete on but it looks as if Southwest might be getting aggressive with American on a lot of routes that AA has been dominating with almost zero competition for a long time.   Southwest is doing it by offering direct, one stop, no plane change flights and they look pretty good to me. 

If you live in an area served by Southwest, it may very well pay dividends to take the extra moment to see what they’re offering on your chosen route.  Just remember that you won’t pay baggage (or non-alcohoic beverage) fees and you will fly on mainline aircraft with friendly service staff.  That has a value in and of itself.

In way, it is a shame that Southwest continues to refuse to list itself with online travel agencies like Expedia and Travelocity as I think they would compare so favorably against legacy airlines that it might well be worth it.

Now I’ll stop acting like a Southwest commercial.

Filed under: Airline Service, Travel Hints by ajax
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