OscartheGrouch

Pelican,

Now remember I am trying to take a deep breath and relax. I am starting to doubt your description of the incident in Seattle that you described. It went from you having to slam on the brakes and being cutoff (which again I would disaprove of) to "almost" a class "A" mishap. With no confirmation from the tower after you called them back that a conflict existed I am getting the feeling that your story has been embellished. Now calm down, I am not calling you a liar. I just believe you are trying to make your point. Only you and your fellow crewmember can know for sure.

P.S. Just as I have told others if there is any negative bias (which I think I have been observing) in your posts towards Little 'ol SWA in the future I will call you on it. For the time being though I will have to believe that your comment about not having any gripes about SWA is truthful.

EMBFlyer

Man, they're really slipping on "Go Forward Day."

powrful1

I have enjoyed being put behind SW many times when we were out first and SW wasn't time critical either for flow. ATC is supposed to work on a first come first serve basis. I have been turned 20 degrees and slowed, so SW could move ahead.

In a past life 200' short of the end of the runway I have called tower for an interestion departure and gotten it in front of SW. I have had controllers move planes over so we could taxi past or moved us over so we could taxi past those that go <10kts. This was when I worked for a historical block company with no ACARS or TAMDARS...now I am slow an safe, save that fuel. But why spend time on the ground wasting fuel when you can get up in the air and pull it back to best economy?

HercDriver130

Perception is 90% of reality.... and I think many times it just seems like the LUV boys are getting pref treatment. I saw it maybe once in nearly a year flying in and out of MDW and even then it was probably more our perception than fact.... we felt we were in the best position to be #1 and were turned away from final and became #2.... no big deal really... heck I was paid by the minute.

Now... overseas.. holy crap batman... when I was AD AF I once watched 20+ Lufthansa jets go before me at Frankfurt Intl. We should have been #5 or 6 on the parrallel but they just let the home team roll until they were done.

BoeingTanker

A buddy of mine is a controller at Spokane Intl. The first week that Southwest started serving GEG, he had a SWA jet ask him this:

"So what’s the secret word to use to get preferential treatment here?"

He didn't want to respond, but it only took a few seconds for someone to key up and say: UNITED

Don't know if it's still that way, but I thought it was funny when I heard it.

Pelican

Oscar - We also had 160 Pax that needed to pull their teeth out of the seatbacks as witnesses (ok, maybe that is an embelishment). Doesn't take much for a Class A....swap wingtips and you've done enough damage to get into that category and that's what I'm talking about. Nobody was going to die, but it was unsafe and unnecessary.

As far as having a bias against SWA, I wouldn't read too much into it. I believe there is idiots at every airline and there are also really good people at every airline. I think that SWAs policy to cut corners to save gas & money is smart, but then you have a stray idiot in there that doesn't know how to temper that and does something stupid.

CaptainCarl

Mmm Pizza! I want pizza now. Gonna have to call the tower at Love Field and see when the next party is

I luv SWA.

OscartheGrouch

Fair enough!

NEDude

If you are getting paid block or better, just think as SWA getting preferred treatment as Southwests way of helping increase your paycheck.

Al Aska

That is right..... Most of us are Paid By the HOUR!!!!! Hello...