Nuts About Southwest

Please don't! As a customer with severe food allergies, your airline is one that I can still fly with confidence that my life will not be put in danger by an unwelcome snack. I can't control many environmental factors that I encounter daily, such as walking past a concession stand that is roasting nuts, but I can choose to fly an airline that does not serve food. On behalf of all food-allergic consumers ( and our numbers are increasing rapidly) please do not add more stress to our travel experience. Please do not offer food sales. Even if we do not eat an allergen, if the person next to us does we may have a reaction. Thank you for reading these comments!

NOOOOOOO!!! Southwest Airlines prides it's self on being a "no hidden fee" airline. When you start adding fees here and there you undermine wat the airlne stands for. Airline food is never worth the price and you are just setting yourselves up for dissapointment.

I fly Southwest religiously! I'm flying you guys tomorrow actually! R/T from ISP to MCO, then again in May, Oct, and Nov! (May will be a free R/T thanks to the awesome Rapid Rewards!)

I don't really think that we need to get food service that is above and beyond the snack packs or the simple bags of peanuts or crackers. I think everyone that typically flies SWA would mostly agree.. I, as well as many people I see getting on various flights, pick up something in the airport and head to my plane. I get what food I want, it's either hot or cold, however I want it.

SWA is known for being simple. Don't complicate things.... Food means extra costs for all passengers, I don't think adding the food service will make someone switch to SWA, I think it may eliminate some passengers due to increased costs. Since I love SWA, I fly with you guys even if you are a few bucks more expensive than JetBlue (I've only seen this 2 times!) But increased prices may bring people to reconsider JetBlue, especially considering the amenities in their aircrafts.

Then you always have more complaints when you provide more services. You say your selling food, but then people complain because that's what people do.... Maybe you might run out of something....COMPLAINT! Maybe your equipment isn't functioning correctly....COMPLAINT! and many more!!

Keep SWA the way it is!

Great "feed" back here yall. Wonderful ideas and thoughts! Keep it coming!!

Christi

personally, I think people are used to either bring food from home or from airport concessions. Look at Midway Airport as an example; I actually look forward to getting some type of 'take onboard' food their as the quality and price are reasonable. Same with Love Field, St. Louis and Baltimore.

You service right now is WELL above other carrier standards/practices in seat pitch, inflight service (which is just beyond scope of any other airline), and your generous baggage and booking/rebooking policies.

Just keep it simple (internet is simple if card swipe and doesn't preoccupy the flight attendants who already work their buns off). Also, I would be concerned that you'd start increasing your ground times for catering ... I fly from Love Field to the west coast on one stops BECAUSE you normally have 25/30 minute stops at intermediate points. I'd hate to see you start compromising your quick turns for a service few passengers would participate in.

Love you guys and glad you're looking outside the 'box', but you have a pretty good thing going on NOW, so don't tinker with a good thing.

I wouldn't mind, on flights longer than 90 minutes, paying for a lunch kit (like the tasty "Fresh Express" sandwhiches I buy from 7-11 ...whole wheat, havarti, crisp lettuce, perky turkey). But charging for water or soda is so ridiculous. If my dentist's office can toss a bottle of water at me in the waiting room, I think SWA should be able to tack $.50 onto my ticket before I pay for it on the assumption that I'll need to rehydrate and can't go find a water fountain.

I may be too conservative but with 103.8 million bags of peanuts and an average aircraft trip length of 626 miles with an average duration of 1 hour and 52 minutes (The shortest daily Southwest flight is between Ft. Myers (RSW) and Orlando (MCO) (133 miles). The longest daily Southwest flight is between Baltimore (BWI) and San Diego (SAN) (2,295 miles).) I would think you would get a few people to buy some of these. On the other hand, I would rather buy a sandwich at the Quiznos in the terminal and take it on with me. Since I know exactly what I'm getting and how much it will cost before I get on the plane.

As Kumar said, "Will this require installing galleys on your planes? " In the current environment I can't see the extra expense, whatever that is, verses the economic gain.

It seems a very tough decision when you have peanuts (fares for peanuts) that probably never go bad and then you introduce meals that you probably end up throwing away or don't have enough for the passenger demand at other times. You might endanger the customer service experience with either choice but people know what to expect from Southwest and should be able to plan ahead and "be prepared."

Good luck with the decision and if the crews don't have time to get food when they're on the ground I'm all for having sandwiches on board but you might end up with overweight crews cleaning up the leftovers (added weight = added cost.)

- Arvin

I think having sandwiches or salads available for sale on longer flights would be good. Maybe even sell them at the gate before departure, not sure if that's logistically easier or not, just something that popped into my brain. $5 seems like a reasonable pricepoint as long as it is tasty. I would visit some of the FBO's @ DAL and take a look at what they get for a "boxed lunch". It's usually a good sandwich, pasta salad, some sort of fruit, and a cookie.

I don't want it to replace the free snacks though, I appreciate those!

Speed, how do you remember the Flying Nosh? I still have a few of the red nylon drawstring bags that held the cheese and delicious soft roll that NY Air served. I was the 3rd person hired way back in 1980 to help get those MD-80s off the ground! Nice to hear from someone else who remembers. If the food SWA serves is as quality as the other services we offer, it's a terrific idea!

I vote no to the idea of food in our planes. I take pride in the fact that we are a simple operation we get people where they are going in a safe, fast, and courteous manner. I think thats why we have so many repeat customers. We offer a great product as it is and I don't want to be like any of these other airlines, I like the fact that we stand alone. Lets stick with what has made us great and keep it the way it is.