Comments on: Trip Report: Breezing Into Dallas and Phoenix

By: CF

CF — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:11:53 +0000

David – I’m sure it did cost more. It’s 40 miles roundtrip, so right there we’re over $2.50. I came back on a Sunday morning, so there was no traffic to speak of. But I used to sit on that road during my commute for a year, so I can tell you that in traffic, I could probably still beat one hour to get home.

By: David SF east bay

David SF east bay — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:10:02 +0000

Did it cost your wife more then $2.50 to pick you up? That was a good price to get you to LAX, to bad it took longer then driving. But on a jammed packed 405 the Friday before a three day weekend, it might be faster. You should have tried the public transportation on the way home to compare.

By: CF

CF — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:09:30 +0000

Brian – That’s weird. I tried to check in for my outbound flight online and it gave me an error. So I didn’t even bother to try to check in on my return.

By: Brian Lusk

Brian Lusk — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:04:34 +0000

CF–Electronic pass travel is coming. We know we have been behind others in that regard, but we are getting there. Unfortunately, it involves modifying/replacing a bunch of different computer programs. Also, I wish we had told you. You can kind of checkin online with a paper ticket. If you are on a paper ticket and go online to checkin, the system will assign you a boarding position–like A-45. It just won’t print the boarding pass. (It will give you a security document to pass through the checkpoint.) At the airport, all you need to do is either stop by the ticket counter and exchange the security document for a boarding pass, or you can use the security document to go directly to the gate and they will supply the BP. It’s sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.

We know it is a stopgap measure until we go entirely Ticketless.

By: CF

CF — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:01:17 +0000

Jay – Excellent question indeed. My guess is that my ability to schedule three airplanes on a defined set of routes definitely does not qualify me as being smarter. In terms of smartness, I’m going to say that the Southwest employee who went home at night and built the scheduling optimizer that the airline now uses would be the smartest guy in the room.

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:05:26 +0000

After seeing your non-rev ticket….the question still remains….ARE you smarter than a (WN) schedule planner?

By: JK

JK — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:48:55 +0000

CF–Love to read things from people who write simply but well, and show passion. Enjoy your time away from the blog.

It’s one of life’s joys to be able to afford and have the time to take a quick, fun trip across the country. April 1, IAD-SAN-SFO and return the same day, late, SFO-ORD-IAD, all on UA. Of, course the particular day and the destination was fabulous for a 9 hours of sightseeing, BART, walking the Embarcadero, the cable cars, what have you, but the travel experience is still the big draw for me. Always wonder if people in the industry ever fly, like a customer. If they did [and read your posts], and they truly cared about their customers, I think lots of things, simple things, would change. Hoping!

By: Wes

Wes — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:02:24 +0000

As you will see often mentioned here in TX:

“El Paso is closer to California than it is to Dallas”

By: CF

CF — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:00:55 +0000

Anon – Thanks to a quirk of geography, that’s only slightly faster than normal. See for yourself:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA41/history/20090323/1727Z/KLAX/KELP

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:57:33 +0000

LAX-ELP in 1h18m sounds wrong.