Sue Burgess began to feel sick on a Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque earlier this year, and after a rough trip in which she filled several barf bags, she was sent to a hospital after the plane landed. She’s fine now — turns out she had the stomach flu — but there’s the small matter of a $9,000 hospital bill.
southwest airlines
During the last week, several news outlets and bloggers — including most recently, the Arizona Daily Star — have breathlessly reported that Southwest Airlines quietly revised its contract to define mechanical delays as an “Act of God.”
Good work, Clem Bason. Hotwire’s chief executive scored a perfect score on Glassdoor’s new Travel Industry Report Card — one of the few bright spots in an otherwise underperforming industry.
I’m a big fan of Southwest Airlines, but the latest Transportation Department report card isn’t.
Poor Charleston International Airport.
Ellie Capers’ 12th-grade class has plans to volunteer at a marine lab in Baja, Mexico, when the swine flu outbreak forces them to cancel their trip. Their airline offers them another option: a vacation in Las Vegas. Are they stuck with a trip to Sin City? Or did their airline fail to help them?
Just as Delta Air Lines announced plans to raise its checked baggage fees, another carrier appears to be quietly considering charging its customers for the first piece of checked luggage.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the whole subpoena unpleasantness over the New Year’s holiday is that the agents who came to my colleague Steve Frischling’s home allegedly threatened to revoke some of his security clearance. I wondered if they might do the same thing to me, perhaps adding my name to the Terrorist Screening Database.
It just happened to me.
It was just a matter of time before Southwest Airlines, which started accepting pets as passengers earlier this year, got into a dog-fight with a customer. Actually, this one’s more of a cat fight.
The average cockpit wage cost per average passenger fare per hour of flight is just $3.73 — almost half the minimum wage — according to analysis by Robert Herbst of the Web site Airlinefinancials.com.
Southwest Airlines, according to a new survey by Glassdoor, a company that conducts online salary surveys.
Yes. Sure, Southwest’s decision to begin charging for early boarding is taking it on a slippery slope toward a la carte fees, but what a ride it is, according to passengers like Jennifer Rigdon.
United Airlines and US Airways lead the pack, according to the Transportation Department, charging their customers $78 million and $66 million, respectively. (The figures on the chart are for the first quarter of 2009, and are in millions.)
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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