Monday, May 02, 2011
Unknown
Woke up Saturday morning feeling some excitement.
My flight from Portland, Oregon to Spokane, Washington was essentially a fairly routine one. While I have never flown that sector before, I have been to both airports and both cities a few times now.
Yet Southwest Airlines flight 3218 was no ordinary flight for me. It was the 737th flight in my life. Yup, I have left the ground 737 times -and returned 737 times. I have fastened my seatbelt 737 times.
Thanks to Southwest airlines being an airline who (currently) only fly Boeing 737s, my 737th flight would be on a Boeing 737. For a plane geek, thats the ultimate in geekiness!
I checked in online and was assigned position B5. Southwest do not assign seats. Instead you get allocated a position in the boarding line based on essentially the time you check in. You then board in 3 groups of 60: Group A, Group B and Group C. My position meant I would board as the fifth person in the second group. Once on board, you are then free to choose your own seat. The earlier you board, the better your chances of bagging a good seat. In my case, there would be at least 65 people ahead of me.
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| N744 SW at Spokane airport |
Our plane was N744SW. This 737-700 first flew for Southwest on 26th March, 1999 and has 137 economy seats. I was surprised to easily get 11D, an aisle seat in the emergency exit row. While it does not have much more leg room, the seats in row 10 do not recline and there are only 2 people in the row.
Friendly welcome from the on board Southwest team (as always). Contrast that to the usual grumpiness at United, the surliness of American and the cool aloofness at Virgin America).
While it was a full flight, the luggage compartments did not end up being full. Southwest do not charge for checked in luggage which makes boarding less stressful compared to United, for example where people try to carry on board small mountains of luggage and fight over every inch of luggage space.
We took off right on time and landed right on time. It was a very smooth flight with some light turbulence as we descended into Spokane airport.
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| Thanks crew |
I shared with the crew 3/4 through the flight about how my "hobby" of recording my flights started. Just before his death, my friend Tony Chapman set up a Flight memory account into which he painstakingly entered 100s of my flights from my junior jet club book and frequent flyer statements).
As soon as I told the crew that it was my 737th flight, they understood the significance and connection with this aircraft.
On the ground, I was invited into the cockpit, met the captain and recorded these happy snaps.
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| Captain= good sport |
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| Co Pilot |
Thanks Southwest for a memorable 737th flight - six stars today! Below is a table summarising of all of my flights- 3.2 months inside planes with 76 airlines to five continents- one million miles of flying (and because I offset my carbon emissions many, many trees). More at my Flightmemory. Of all my flights, 193 (just over a quarter)have been in 737s.
Map of all my Southwest airlines flights (below)
Table of my 27 Southwest flights (below)
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Unknown
Having just had a horror United Airlines recently, I found this report very fascinating. US News used information produced by the UN Department of Transport and produced an excellent slide show. Best to worst
- Hawaiian Airlines (excellent on time performance and customer satisfaction ratings)
- AirTran (high customer satisfaction and good baggage handling)
- JetBlue (great customer satisfaction)
- Southwest ( lowest % of customer complaints)
- Continental (consistently good for six years)
- Frontier (similar rating as Continental)
- US Airways (scores have been improving)
- American (the worst airine for baggage losses)
- Alaska (good on-time performance but passenger dissatisfaction)
- United (with the lowest passenger satisfaction score)
- Delta (most delays and most passenger complaints)
From my own experience, this is my current rating of the airlines in the USA (notice some overlaps!)
- Virgin America-everything about VA is class-hope they can hang onto this as they expand
- JetBlue
- AirTran-
- Southwest Airlines-
- Frontier Airlines
- Continental
- Alaska Airlines
- United Airlines-
- American Airlines
- US Airways
- Delta
Friday, August 20, 2010
Unknown
I just ticked over total flying time of 85 days or 2040:40 hours! I was tickled with that number 2040:40!!!! This has taken me 647 flights. I am on the way to the magic one million miles - about 1.6 million kilometres! Over half of those miles have been with one airline: Qantas. A third has been with United Airlines, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, American Airlines, Air New Zealand and Continental Airlines
combined. The remainder is split between 60 other airlines!
Labels:
Air France,
Air New Zealand,
Air Tran,
Airlines of South Australia,
Continental,
Qantas,
Southwest,
United Airlines,
US Aiways,
Virgin America,
Virgin Blue
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Unknown
One of my other favourite blogs
Cranky Flier has an article on
What airlines in the USA spend on food.
United spends the most around $6 per passenger. One assumes that most of this spend is for their first class pax. American and Continental spend a little less and Delta spends $5 per passenger. Southwest spends around 25 cents (all pax get peanuts and a cup of water/soft drink/juice).
Be interesting in Australia and New Zealand and Europe to compare whats spent here.
As soon as I told the crew that it was my 737th flight, they understood the significance and connection with this aircraft. 
