Southworst, a reflection on the airline industry, with a Sprint/T-Mobile sidebar

If you fly in and out of Dallas, it's almost certainly going to be either Southwest Airlines at the old, but modernized, Love Field, or American Airlines at D/FW International. 

First, let us note Southwest has been around 50 years. It's a legacy airline by now, too. Its "bags fly free" and its one-plane model (except for some AirTran planes) haven't been fully adopted elsewhere, but other practices such as fuel hedging have. Also, it does run a modified sort of a hub-and-spoke system. There's a technical name for it I once saw, but can't remember now. But, it's not a true point-to-point.

Southwest has the alternate name of Southworst, sometimes well earned, and well documented on these pages. From the serious, to the passenger killed being sucked out a window, to the serious of being way too cozy with the Metroplex office of the Federal Aviation Administration, to the not-so-serious of having a reputation for passenger modesty, it does do this.

But, who else are you going to fly?

DFW is American's main hub, and since its merger with US Airways, it has a near stranglehold there.

Delta flies a couple of gates at Love, and Alaska one or two. Continental, with a hub in Houston, flies a few at DFW. Otherwise, the main competition there for America is Spirit, which has not (yet) gotten around to charging you for the air you breathe on a flight, but has about everything else taken care of.

The background to this? Vacation.

Left Dallas on Friday, July 30. Southworst had either a 7:55 nonstop to Oakland or an 8:10 one-stop that night. Figured I could get to the airport early enough for the nonstop, and did so.

Only to have notifications on the way that it was delayed, then delayed again.

Final takeoff was set for shortly after 9 p.m. The flight was coming from Little Rock, and there was no severe weather between there and the Metromess; I don't know if weather further east or north delayed it, or crew issues. (Hold on to that.)

Well, we didn't actually take off then. It took ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES for Southworst's ground crew to get all the luggage loaded. This is AFTER everybody's boarded, flight attendants have done their checks, etc. In other words, we could have taken off then, but ... no luggage.

For the return trip? Options were a godawful early one-stop at 6:20, with no plane change, a semi-godawful early 7:20 nonstop, and what I picked, an 8:35 one-stop, no plane change. For an outbound plane at a "home" airport, the 7:20 would have been fine, but with the extra arrival time for an airport I've only flown out of once, maybe twice, before (I've done San Francisco and San Jose as well), I didn't want to get up that early.

Due to driving California's North Coast, I didn't check in Saturday night for my Sunday morning flight on Aug. 8.

So, I got to a Southwest kiosk and it said it couldn't run my reservation. I run to the counter after getting some help, and ... it appears my flight was cancelled. 

They eventually and quickly got me on that 7:20 nonstop, which was starting boarding at that time. Oy.

I had NO message on my phone from Southworst, but hold on to that thought as well.

Before we took off, the captain said that they were waiting for the first officer to come in from Seattle. Why would you announce that? Now I'm wondering how tired this guy is. That's why I said "hold on to that" above. 

Anyway, AFTER I get back to Dallas, while waiting for my bags (which did make it), I NOW have messages from Southworst, first saying they were scheduling me for that 6:20, then for the 7:20.

I have no idea why those weren't sent earlier.

Or were they?

Sprint, now part of T-Mobile after another merger, SUCKS in Oregon. I was, a couple of days earlier, planning on meeting an old acquaintance in Eugene, Oregon. 

I had ZERO phone or text service from Portland, where I first texted, assumed it went through, and didn't check, into and through Eugene. I had to borrow a landline phone at a gas station to call my friend. Thanks to the lady at Arco. Oh, my friend confirmed the suckitude.

At least T-Mobile appears to have contacted me, but only to say "verify my account," and apparently typing in a phone number isn't sufficient, and I am at work as I write this up Monday evening.

So, who knows? Maybe Sprint/T-Mobile sucked in Oakland, too, though I don't really seeing "no network available" on my phone in Oakland.

That said, Southworst, also contacted on both Twitter and FB, but on Sunday, have sent me nothing but Sunday "bot" messages that today is not a workday. As of Monday night, no message.

(I later read on Twitter that Southworst appears to be scrubbing flights where COVID cancellations mean they aren't packed like sardines. The one I got rebooked on was sardines in spades; I think I literally had the next-to-last seat on the plane.)

See, I can switch to ATT or Verizon, or even U.S. Cellular or somebody. It's harder with airport monopolies.

OTOH, T-Mobile on Twitter and Sprint on Fuckbook aren't helpful. T-Mobile person suggests "you could test it," ignoring that I said I was on vacation. I also noted that Eugene is 200K people, not a small hicksville. Sprint person asked for home address and nearest major cross street after being handed over from a T-Mobile on Fuckbook. (Sprint has zero presence on Twitter, basically.)

The bottom line is that, in both cases, they know they suck, and they know they can largely get away with sucking.

Update: Speaking of? T-Mobile just had a massive data breach. Thank doorknob I am:

1. Not a prepaid customer;
2. Refuse to let companies keep credit card info on file when I make online payments.