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Nuts About Southwest > Video Blog > A Day in the Life of a 25 Minute Turn

  A Day in the Life of a 25 Minute Turn

A Day in the Life of a 25 Minute Turn

Video: 

In this video we take you behind the scenes, to see what it takes to get our planes unloaded, stocked, cleaned, and reloaded in just under 25 minutes.  Thank you to the great crew in ABQ for your help with this video!

Comments

Yet another fantastic and interesting video!

The late Lamar Muse wrote in his book, "Southwest Passage," about the birth of the ten-minute turn following the court-ordered charter shutdown and deal to sell the fourth 737 to Frontier:

"I had called a staff meeting to inform our supervisors that Southwest [... was] still dead in the water unless we could continue our every-hour flights in the Dallas-Houston market with on a three-aircraft fleet. I explained that the only way we could do that was to fly the airplanes fifty minutes and turn them in ten minutes, as opposed to the twenty-five minutes we were currently scheduling. Their response? We can, and we will! Would you believe that our flight completion and on-time performance factors actually improved after instituting the ten-minute turns into our schedule on May 15, 1972? It was a team effort lead by Bill Franklin [then the VP of Ground Operations, I believe]."

I remember the days of the 10 minute turn around

Clever editing! I saw two different paint schemes on that single aircraft! Still, it's pretty impressive what you do. Here in Manchester I've watched as a 737 was stopped at the gate less than 30 SECONDS after wheels first touch the concrete. Of course, that means the captain needs to 'Whoa Nellie!' the aircraft to hit the correct turn-off from the runway!

Thanks so much Sandeep! We appreciate your write up on the blog!

what about the flight attendants? they do a vital job during the turn too!

Indeed, our Flight Attendants play a very important role in the turn and in all our daily operations. While we focused on the ramp for this video, stay tuned for "a day in the life of a Southwest Flight Attendant"...coming very soon!

When can we expect "A Day in the Life of Blog Boy"? I've always wanted to know how he posts to the blog using stone tablets... :D

SWA ground crews are like a Nascar pit crew. Everybody working together, hustling, and keeping it fun. It is awesome to watch as a Customer, peering out the windows of those 737s.

All my air travel is with Southwest. To and from NH. I pick this airline for the price and the customer friendly crew and employees. HOWEVER, I have seldom if ever, seen a 25 min. turnaround between flights. I WISH it would take that long, especially the cleaning part. I have been disgusted at the uncleanliness of my surroundings and the need to brush off my seat before I can sit. The windows are "always" smudged with someone else's fingerprints or oily face marks. The seats, seatbelts, floors and tray tables are constantly caked with food particles, stains, stickyness, etc. I've found in the past a blanket would be a nice touch from the chill. I'll "never" use one from the plane again after seeing a yound adult wipe beer from her mouth and then wipe her nose. They should never be recycled without laundered first!!! Show us a protective sealed bag!! We live in a germ invested world and should feel comfortable flying in cleaner aircrafts. The price of a ticket should more than cover these issues. This experience has happened too many times and I am sooo happy I can finally bring this problem to someone's attention. I sure do hope to see a change on my next flight. Someone's "not" doing their job!!!

rodent
I thought it was a real neat email I recived from you today about baggage limits. Ya mean I can only check 2 bags free? And I can carry one bag plus one personal item inside the plane. Gee, I could fly another airline and be charged for my two bags and they would charge me higher fares and fly me on old airplanes and not even give me nuts, though they may make me nuts

Drew,
I keep telling Paula and Christi that "A Day in the Life of Blog Boy" would make for boffo box office returns but no one believes me. I'm afraid that any video image of me would bring this series to a grinding halt.
Blog Boy

Plus, Brian is very particular about filming in his office. I tried recently, but was only allowed after some sweet talk and back massaging.

Now, on the other hand, if we did a video of a day in the life of Christi doing a day in the life video, that would be some exciting stuff. Paula, for that, I would offer up my office.
Brian

A blatant, biased, one-sided version of Southwest. Kind of like patting yourself on the back. Funny how you fail to recognize the incompetence within your operations.

Instead of this commentary (insert here the name of all who want to whine), what about taking a trip on another airline who does not even TRY to turn-around quickly, since occasional human mistakes, unconrollable weather delays, and other unforseen events are apparently unexceptable to you? I, for one, will take the goal of fast service, and the fact that I see it reached regularly, over flying an airline I know by the end of the day will have wasted so much time between landings and take-offs that I am guarenteed a delay. But as I always say when I fail to understand others. "To each, their own"!

you should do a day in the life of a flight attendant
but these videos are great i would love to work for southwest

wow! you may want to leave the film making to professionals and go back to work a t-point.

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