Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines tighens rules on emotional support animals

Animals, Uncategorized, , ,

Southwest Airlines is the latest airline to tighten its policies on passengers traveling with trained service and emotional support animals.

The new rules go in to effect Monday, September 17, 2018.

Under Southwest Airlines’ new rules, each customer will only be able to travel with one emotional support animal (or ESA) and ESAs will be limited to only cats and dogs.

During travel, the airline will always require each ESA to be kept in its carrier or be kept on a leash.

Customers traveling with ESAs will continue to be required to present a complete, current letter from a medical doctor or licensed mental health professional on the day of departure.

As part of these new policies, Southwest is also recognizing fully-trained psychiatric support animals (PSAs) as trained service animals.

The airline said it informally accepted PSAs as trained service animals in the past. Now the airline will formally accept this type of service animal. PSAs are animals that are specially trained to perform a task or work for a person with a mental health-related disability. To travel with these animals, the airline will require only a credible verbal assurance.

When it comes to traditional trained service animals, Southwest says it is going to adopt the DOT guidelines and accept only dogs, cats, and miniature horses.

“For the health and safety of our Customers and Employees, unusual or exotic animals will not be accepted,” the airline said in a statement and, “As is the case today, the Customer with the disability must be able to provide credible verbal assurance that the animal is a trained service animal.”

“We welcome emotional support and trained service animals that provide needed assistance to our Customers,” said Steve Goldberg, Southwest’s Senior Vice President of Operations and Hospitality said in statement, “However, we want to make sure our guidelines are clear and easy to understand while providing Customers and Employees a comfortable and safe experience.”

Southwest’s new rule announcement comes affter Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, and United have also updated their policies.

What do you think of the new rules? Fair?

Southwest Airlines has served its last little bag of peanuts

Airlines, Food, , ,

 

Southwest Airlines has served its last little bag of peanuts.

Earlier this month Southwest Airlines announced that, in the interest of the health of passengers with peanut allergies, the airline would stop serving peanuts during flights starting August 1.

“Peanuts forever will be part of Southwest’s history and DNA,” the airline said in a statement, “However, to ensure the best on-board experience for everyone, especially for customers with peanut-related allergies, we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue serving peanuts on all flights…Our ultimate goal is to create an environment where all customers—including those with peanut-related allergies—feel safe and welcome on every Southwest flight.”

 

To mark the day, Orlando International Airport set aside a display case containing the ‘relics of aviation history.’

Will you miss the peanuts?

Southwest Airlines nixes peanuts starting August 1

Flights, Food, , ,
Giving way to the concerns of passengers who have peanut allergies, Southwest Airlines has announced that, as of August 1, it will stop serving those tiny little packets of peanuts during flights.
“Peanuts forever will be part of Southwest’s history and DNA,” the airline said in a statement, “However, to ensure the best on-board experience for everyone, especially for customers with peanut-related allergies, we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue serving peanuts on all flights beginning August 1.”
On its website, Southwest has told passengers with peanut allergies that if they made a note in their reservation, an effort would be made to make sure no peanuts would be served on their flights. But that didn’t always work out.
Other airlines stopped serving peanuts long ago, but for Southwest peanuts are part of the company’s branding. The airline is often “nuts” about this or that and has a quarterly newsletter called “In a Nutshell.”
Starting next month, the airline hopes passengers will pleased with the pretzels that continue to be served on flights, along with the other free snacks distributed on longer flights.

“Our ultimate goal is to create an environment where all customers—including those with peanut-related allergies—feel safe and welcome on every Southwest flight,” Southwest said in its statement.

Souvenir Sunday at Frankfurt & Austin Bergstrom Int’l Airports

Souvenir Sunday, Souvenirs, , ,

Today is Souvenir Sunday – a day to look at some of the fun things you can buy – or just look at – when you’re stuck at the airport.

This week’s treats come from Frankfurt Airport, where I ended up spending the night on my way home from a visit to Florence, Italy, where I spotted these champagne cork-shaped seats at a bar in the Amerigo Vespucci Airport (FLR).

At the Frankfurt Airport, I came across plenty of Christmas-themed souvenirs, including nutcrackers and ornaments shaped like pickles. Why pickles? Evidently the tradition of hiding a pickle-shaped ornament in your Christmas tree and giving an extra present to the first person who finds it orginated in Germany.

And lucky travelers on one special Southwest Airlines flight from Austin Bergstrom International Airport to Chicago last Thursday got some great souvenirs.

The airline teamed up with Austin-based jeweler Kendra Scott and gave all passengers on the flight a free drink, goodie bags and gift boxes filled with – you guessed it – jewelry! – at baggage claim delivered by a yellow-clad Santa.

If you see a great souvenir when you’re stuck at the airport, please take a photo and send it along. If your photo is featured on Souvenir Sunday I’ll send you an aviation-themed souvenir.

 

Southwest Airlines celebrates Shark Week

Contests, liveries,

Shark Week is coming to the Discovery Channel July 23 – July 30 and, once again, Southwest Airlines is jumping in with a shark-themed 737-700 featuring five shark species on the fuselage.

 

The shark plane will fly through Aug. 31, 2017, but on all WiFi-equipped Southwest planes passengers will be able to watch a pre-premiere episode of African Shark Safari on the on demand Shark Week channel.

During Shark Week, passengers can watch the programming live on the Discovery Channel.

And to kick off Shark Week, Southwest and Discovery are planning to do a surprise takeover of a special flight.

Shark fan or not, you might want to enter the Dare to Dive sweepstakes to  Grand Cayman.
The prize includes round trip travel for the winner and three guests,  a $2,000 Ritz Carlton gift card, and a $1,000 Visa gift card for an aquatic adventure. Enter by July 31, 2017. Good luck!