HOLIDAY SCHEDULES ARE A-COMIN'!

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Mon, 06/23/2008 - 08:59 — Bill Owen

Maestro! Queue me up some "West Side Story" please, in the key of F:

Could it be, yes it could.

Something's coming, something good!

If I can wait.........

Something's coming, I don't know what it is,

But it is, gonna be great!

Flight schedules for the time period extending from October 31, 2008 all the way to January 9, 2009, have been sent--and will be open for sale next Thursday, June 26! This (obviously) includes the Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, and New Year's holiday schedules. So start thinking about where you want to have your turkey and dressing....where you want to light your candles or trim your tree....and where you want to ring in 2009. Something's coming--our flight schedule, that is--and I guarantee it's gonna be great!

You might wonder why we sent the flight schedules on the 19th and they won't be available for you to "see" and purchase until the 26th. First off, this is always the most difficult "chunk" of schedule to prepare of the entire year--as I said, it contains three Holiday Schedules, and each one of them are manually tweaked based on anticipated traffic (and traffic is always different over the Holidays than it is during the non-Holiday November/December/early January timeframe). So there is four times as much work to do to build versus a normal schedule send.

Then, after Schedule Planning distributes the schedule, a zillion other workgroups, both inside Southwest and externally, have to take the data we've sent and get them ready for you to make reservations. For example, our Reservations Support team in Technology has to take our data and actually load it into our Reservations system. Interactive Marketing has to do the same to prepare southwest.com to receive and activate the schedule dates. Revenue Management has to get the fare inventories ready to accept your bookings. And our partners at SABRE and Galileo (two huge global computer reservations systems) have to ingest our schedule, make sure it's in synch with what we're selling internally, and go through all of their processes to make sure that next Thursday they're ready to hit their big "DING!" button.

So get ready. Your phone won't jingle, and your door won't knock, but something's coming sometime next Thursday, June 26. And yeah...it's gonna be great!

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Comments

Interesting, Bill.

But I keep trying to sing/hum your lyrics to the West Side Story theme, and it keeps turning into the theme from Spider Man. Did you ever think about them being that similar?

Ok ... I'll be quiet now.

Bob Hurst — Mon, 06/23/2008 - 09:52

I am eager to see what the holiday schedule will have to offer from San Antonio, as I believe this market is heavily underserved by Southwest. We have few non-stop flights to chose from, and the pricing is rarely competitive when compared against other major carriers with better flight choices. Even with the new charges for bags, curbside check in, etc., I am always able to find a better deal elsewhere.

We have always been loyal Southwest customers, but since we made the move to San Antonio from the Baltimore area that has become a challenge. We hope to see better service and pricing coming to this market soon.

Thanks!

anitabunner — Mon, 06/23/2008 - 12:45

Wonder if there will be the 10% off this time for the first few days like there was last time?

Summer — Mon, 06/23/2008 - 14:24

At what time on 6/26/08 will the schedule be made available? Anytime during the day or at 12:01 AM on Thursday?

Anonymous — Mon, 06/23/2008 - 14:34

Dear Anonymous.... The time is about between 1000am-1030am CST. ô¿ô

Donna-Res — Mon, 06/23/2008 - 16:56

I have always been anxious to see Southwest expand, particularly now since ALL the other airlines are trimming their schedules. But now I'm reading Jack Welch's book, Winning, and I seriously admire you guys for sticking to your principles and being so prudent about expansion.

Micah M. — Mon, 06/23/2008 - 20:48

Hey Bill,

I read an article that Southwest is going to aquire another airline or expand rapidly over the next year or two. Can you comment on that? Would be nice to see more cities added to the system even if they only flew to hub cities.

Anonymous — Tue, 06/24/2008 - 08:12

Actually, here's the latest REAL stuff from our CEO, Gary. Rumors are great, especially since many of ours seem to stay positive, but the current wisdom from HQ is that mergers are NOT a good idea in an era of $130-140 oil.

http://www.suntimes.com/business/lazare/1015690,CST-FIN-Southweb20.artic....

Enjoy the article!!

Will Browne
MDW F/A

Will Browne — Tue, 06/24/2008 - 15:43

Boy for all you guys do right you sure make it hard to compliment you and your service. I however felt so strongly I needed to thank you I was willing to search for another alternative to electronically pass along my kudos.

I fly about 14 times a year and I always try to fly Southwest. I sure wish you flew all the places I find myself having to go. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks and keep up the good work!

Phyllis

Anonymous — Tue, 06/24/2008 - 22:25

bill,
can you give us a hint...any new service for denver...
a simple yes or no will suffice...
jim

Anonymous — Wed, 06/25/2008 - 13:06

can you tell me what time the schedule will be out for eastern standard time on Thursday June 26?
Thank you

Anonymous — Wed, 06/25/2008 - 14:51

Wow, Bill I was impressed to see you quoted in Wednesday's WSJ about the DEN expansion. You could have kidded them that DEN was Southwest's new frontier. ;)]

Humor aside, Frontier is a good airline but today's cost environment will likely prove just too hard for them. Better for Southwest to have alternate service in place already than to have to rush to establish it.

nsx at flyertalk.com's Southwest forum

nsx — Wed, 06/25/2008 - 20:30

do you realize the cutoff date for coming schedule is smack dab in the middle of the BCS national championship college football game (Jan 8)? Sure wish you'd extend the calendar by a few days so I can book my 4 ROUND TRIP flights instead of only being able to book one way!
Stephanie

iamsam — Thu, 06/26/2008 - 06:26

To whom ever at Southwest Airlines that decided a SWA potential customer may put the time and effort of locating the best flight plan & price on Southwest Airlines web-sight, but is NOT allowed the option to book web price( wanna get away) by calling their 1-800 service to book such flight is just plain BAD business sense, and i am very dissappointed that SWA would have such a policy.
This policy of forcing customers, whom may have a distrust in sending their personal credit card # thru cyber space, are penalize by NOT being allowed to booked the "wanna get away" price/savings thru their 1-800 customer service/reservation dept. is just plain wrong
Just because i feel more at ease at giving my credit card # to a Southwest representitive via by phone, than thru the distrust of the net, i should still be allowed to booked the flight and price of such flight that which i found in your(SWA) web sight. After all, I DID, put the time and effort in selecting all that is required in booking such reservation.
All was left is for a you(SWA) was to recieve my method of payment thru your representitive(person) and place my reservation into your system...and for that you(SWA) are going to penalize your customer by charging them $100.00 difference in price mark-up just because i do not trust, therefore, refuse to send my credit card # thru the web is outrageous to say the least.
Wont allow me to make payment that gives me peace of mind while same time reap the savings and benifits from my time and effort on your web-sight, well then, you just lost my business. "wanna get away". THANKS, but NO THANKS.

roy — Sat, 06/28/2008 - 20:39

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