Best of 2012 - Airline

To tell the truth, air travel gets tougher everyday. Luggage fees, premium seat location fees, security nightmares at the airport, underpaid cranky staff on the plane, and on and on.

We find ourselves flying less and less. It's not hard to see why, especially traveling with a wheelchair when you're a complete afterthought.

Fortunately, there are a few carriers out there who still do a good job and for the fourth year in a row (talk about consistency) Southwest Airlines wins our airline of the year cudos.

Consistency, on-time performance, no hidden fees, friendly and helpful staff, comfort, good prices, and good equipment handling are longtime hallmarks of this year's Airline of the Year - Southwest Airlines.

Southwest is also a good friend of wheelchair travelers. Very good with preboarding, identifying needs, and helping out whenever they can. 

Southwest has clean planes, friendly cabin staff, the best baggage handlers when it came to loading our chair, free checked luggage, free snacks - on the longer flights even approaching a light meal, free use of pillows and blankets, no delays, and low prices.

The only knock I can think of is that there is no assigned seating on Southwest and it can be a free-for-all to find a seat. Get there early if you don't qualify for pre-boarding to get one of the first boarding passed - Southwest has three tiers, A, B, and C, and are handed out first-come, first-served. A boards first, B second, and C last.

I know we sound like a broken record, but we really haven't flow anyone else that even approaches how nice it is to fly Southwest and, yes, we have flown plenty of other carriers.  Just wish they'd fly to more places I want to go.

You might also want to check our our Year in Review - 2012 while you're here.

Darryl
Copyright 2012 - Darryl Musick
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