Leave it to travel guru Christopher Elliott to find out. Over at his blog, Chris recounts a recent flight aboard Southwest from Albuquerque to Orlando, and finds that no one– not flight attendants or passengers– really seem too concerned with the recent safety issues.
Chris quotes one flight attendant who says, ” “We’ve had a lot of cracks [pun intended?] about the whole inspection thing. No serious questions. Most of them are just joking around.”
The general vibe among Southwest employees, unsurprisingly, is that the stories have been blown way out of proportion. Chris tends to agree, and notes that, “There are only a handful of airline reporters in the United States with the depth of knowledge and experience to put an event like this into perspective – to be able to separate the political grandstanding from the PR and get to the core issue.”
He adds: “I would even go as far to say that bloggers have covered the Southwest story more responsibly – more timely, with better sense of perspective and more clear-headed insights than my buddies in the mainstream media have.”
Oh, stop. We’re blushing.
For more on Chris’ reconnaissance mission aboard Southwest, check out the whole article here.