America's Ryan Air

Ok, I'm being rather unfair to start with for two reasons.  One, I've never flown Ryan air, so in spite of all the horror stories I've heard, they could really be decent.  Two, Southwest (which Ryan Air is supposedly modeled on) is a pretty good airline in my opinion, in terms of service and value, they are certainly better in terms of service compared to some of the legacy airlines.  

This time it was a trip to San Diego to attend Neuroscience, so a quick flight from San Jose to San Diego.  A quick aside, it's been a little while since I've flown through San Jose, the new airport is actually quite nice.  The renovations make it seem like a real international airport, even though the only international flights come from Mexico.  But the new concourse is spacious, and it generally has a good feel compared to the old terminal.  Alas, the nice new terminal is offset by the horrible introduction of whole body imager by the TSA.  But that's a rant for another blog.  

Onto Southwest, the standard find your own seat feature actually works quite well, it probably sucks if you're stuck boarding last and then get a middle seat in the back for your troubles.  But the way I look at it, you could just as easily get assigned the middle seat in the last row if you're with a legacy airline, at least this way, it's relatively fair, as long as you check in early enough online.  For blessedly short flights like the one to San Diego, I'm happy to fly the 737.  I think this one was a -500 version, although to be honest, I'm not sure.  

We have the standard seating and there was nothing extraordinary either good or bad about the trip.  The flight was truly uneventful, a little bumpy.   I did notice that the flight attendant was very service oriented, even went through the trouble of finishing serving the drinks she had on hand, incredibly dangerous I thought given that a bad bump could seriously injure someone.  But I liked the devotion to duty. 

Now, I did have one hiccup in my trip.  Originally I planned to leave at 7:00 pm from San Diego back to San Jose, but unfortunately, business ran a little long so I had to change my flight the night before to 8:30 pm.  Called up Southwest, and no big deal, they changed the flight for me on the phone.  Then the next day I showed up, and got back home with no problems. Ok, I did have a business select ticket on the return flight, but you get what you pay for, and the trip to San Diego was a mere $60, so the direct flight was definitely cheaper than the only other option which was United.

I know what a lot of people say about Southwest as an airline for cattle, but with the service they provided. I'd be happy to fly them again any day in short regional hops.  Definitely a thumbs up on Southwest for good service and a very uneventful flight.