Red Flag #32: She doesn’t like to fly on Southwest…
Making travel plans is never fun.
We’re bombarded with options and have to make a ton of tough decisions along the way. Vegas or South Beach? Expedia or Orbitz? Rental car or taxis? Will the price drop twenty minutes after I book, or should I just book now?
The actual process of traveling, of course, is no better. We have to fight traffic to get to the airport, stand in long lines, take off our shoes, interact with incompetent TSA employees, and subsist on Sbarro garlic knots and bottom-barrel Subway chains.
Southwest, however, is like a breath of fresh air. They keep everything simple. You can only book flights from their website. They have an intuitive booking platform, friendly employees, and reasonable prices.
There’s a subset of women out there, though, that somehow don’t like flying on Southwest. They’ll usually give you four reasons: they’re not a fan of the cheeky humor; they’re just not that into the orange and blue color scheme; they don’t like standing in line; and they can’t handle not having assigned seats.
Coincidentally, there are also four things a guy can correctly infer about a girl who hates Southwest:
She doesn’t enjoy people-watching
Southwest is the only airline where you can wait in line next to a B-list celebrity, a soccer mom, and a naval lieutenant. Being amongst people from all walks of life at an airport is always amusing, but when you thrust those people into the Southwest boarding process you get pure entertainment gold.
You’ll undoubtedly see some guy that thinks he’s beating the system when he lines up 45 minutes in advance of the “A” boarding. You’ll also see a couple that’s in their mid-seventies looking around in bewilderment as if they were in the middle of a crowd at their first Snoop Dogg concert. Fish out of water.
If you can’t get excited about this, how are you going to react when we take you on our first date to watch mimes do tightrope walking impersonations at the intersection of State & Chicago.
She doesn’t recognize when she’s being LUV’d
Southwest is known as the LUV airline for a reason. They treat their customers like they want to marry them. No change fees. Bags fly free. Power outlets at the gates. Nabisco 100-Calorie-Snack Packs. Leather seats. It’s Don Juan-style customer courtship.
Southwest doesn’t need to do any of these things, but they do it anyway.
She lacks a sense of humor
Southwest’s flight attendants are more talented than the cast of Glee and funnier than anything that’s been on SNL the past ten years. Every flight is like a Star Search competition and the passengers are the ones handing out the stars.
If you don’t appreciate the upbeat attitude and originality of the Southwest flight attendants, then that’s definitely a red flag.
She doesn’t value punctuality
Southwest has a solid history of on-time arrivals. On the ground, they encourage team work and operational efficiency to allows them to get planes in and out as quickly as possible. In the air, Southwest’s pilots are like honey badgers. They just don’t give a crud. They’ll drive the plane through a tornado just to get their passengers to their destination on time.
“Oh now look, there’s a big bad tornado on the horizon. You think the Southwest pilot cares? He doesn’t care. He flies right through that nasty tornado to get to his destination. How crazy is that? Nothing can stop Southwest pilot when he’s late. “
If you’d rather sit on the tarmac for nine hours while some other airline’s pilot explains that your flight’s delayed because of a mild wind pattern in Missouri, be our guest. You’ll just never be our girlfriend.
