Live from 30,000 feet...

We’re flying Southwest to Orlando. We decided to fly down Christmas Day because we thought the plane would be less crowded. Well, the airport itself wasn’t crowded. We dropped our luggage with the skycap and got through security in practically no time. However, or flight is absolutely full! They were asking for volunteers to stay behind in exchange for some compensation. Needless to say, with two small kids we didn’t volunteer.

When practically every other airline is losing money hand over fist, Southwest continues to finish in the black quarter after quarter after quarter. I really think it’s because of the way they treat their customers and their employees. The company is regularly rated in the top 100 companies to work for. We’ve never had an issue with late flights or anything else on Southwest. The’ve been utterly reliable and the employees are always polite and helpful. I’ve basically stopped taking other airlines - they always look bad compared to Southwest. Also, driving to Green Airport in Providence is so much easier than driving to Logan most days.

Finally, Southwest makes the cost of flying pretty reasonable. The specials are great (I flew to Chicago for $150 round trip earlier this year), and they don’t gouge people for flying at the last minute.

Oh, we had Rhode Island radio legend Salty Brine on our flight. We chatted with him in line for a few minutes before we got on the plane. It’s a shame for a native Rhode Islander to admit this, but I didn’t figure out who he was until one of the gate workers said to me “Do you know who that was?” He asked if we knew someone he knew that had adopted children and we talked a bit about the kids. Anyways, I, like practically everyone else in RI, grew up listening to Salty, so it was cool to meet him for a few minutes.