More Videos
MOST SHARED
- Today's Market Action
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- Israel Going Green
- Low Interest Rate Investing
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
- Inside Wal-Mart's Acai Berry Juice Maker
- CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great
- China's Role as Lender Alters Dynamics for United States
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Seeking Innovation in Health Care
- Dollar is Not Plunging—So 'Calm Down': Market Strategist
- Strategists Say Markets Have More Upside — But How Much?
- Hirschhorn: Risk-Averse Traders
- Roginsky: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Financial Reform
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
- Fed Reform? Not So Fast.
- White House Plans to Freeze Spending to Cut Deficit
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
- Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson Reports New Citi Stake
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Court Rejects 'Clawbacks' for Alleged Stanford Victims
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- Tax Credit Sparking First-Time Home Sales: Realtors
- Investors Cut Back US Stocks for Bigger Growth Abroad
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
RSS FEED
Funny Business
Text Size 
 |
AP |
] a lot. I like it. Very low expectations, just cheap, reliable service. But they have a new boarding system which is supposed to be an improvement over the one that's worked fine for decades. Southwest does not assign seats. Instead, when you check in you get a boarding pass stamped A, B, or C. The A's board first, then the B's, then the C's. And each letter has its own line to stand in.
Now, though, the lettered lines are gone, replaced by numerical signs spaced every five feet along the boarding area. When you check in, you still get a letter, but also a number. So if you have A-26, you're supposed to line up below a numerical marker saying 26-30 when they call for the "A's."
Can I tell you how confused people are? It's worse than going metric overnight. The customer service rep has to spend ten minutes explaining where people need to stand, and people are still puzzled. It doesn't seem to speed boarding either.
I suspect we'll be hearing the ten-minute explanation for the next ten years and people STILL won't get it (do you know there are people who still show up at the airport and don't know they have to have liquids in small containers in a plastic bag?)
I sure hope someone didn't earn their Six Sigma Black Belt on this one.
The airline's slogan has been "You are free to move about the country." Moving about the terminal is another matter.
Comments? Funny Stories? Email
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes