Passengers take fun out of Southwest’s supermodel airplane

by Grant Martin on

Try to have a little bit of fun and those pesky passengers get all bent out of shape. Last month, Southwest Airlines joined up with Sports Illustrated to paint the side of one of their Boeing 737s with the image of Bar Rafaeli, an Israeli supermodel, in a white, two-piece swimsuit. It’s a brief promotion aimed at promoting the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and tickle a few passengers who happen to randomly be riding on (or near) the aircraft. Wouldn’t your day get instantly better if you were waiting to take off at 7AM and saw a giant supermodel taxi past you?

But not everyone is as tickled as we are. A slew of passengers, many on Southwest’s corporate blog are complaining about the paint job, equating the image to “soft porn.” They want it taken down.

Think they’re being ridiculous? Check out the gallery below. Think they’re right? Read on:

%Gallery-44713%Have you ever seen soft porn? It doesn’t look like this. Women less adorned are all around us, from billboards in New York City to The Sears Catalogue to, oh, I don’t know, THE BEACH.

Southwest is just having a little bit of fun turning heads in the direction of their aircraft, but if you can’t stand the sight of a pretty Israeli woman, cover your eyes or stop flying for the next couple of months until they repaint her. The promotion only lasts a few more weeks.

Boston reaps the rewards of airline competition

by Grant Martin on

It’s funny. Airlines blame last year’s industry implosions on consumers’ non-stop demands for low fares. Ask any analyst and they’ll say “Transcontinental fares are as low this year as they are were in 1986! Where’s the inflation! The Humanity! The Humanity!”

We can’t be completely to blame though. Three out of four times, a consumer like myself needs to buy a ticket, logs on to Kayak, finds the cheapest fare and buys a ticket. If the bar is twenty dollars higher all around? The cheapest fare still gets purchased and I buy one less fitted oxford at Hollister.

Instead, I think much of the blame lies in aggressive competition. With their fun oil hedge, Southwest often sets the market price by opening service to a city, offering outrageous deals and forcing the competition to match or undercut those fares. Often times, the competition launches their own promotions to keep loyal passengers flying on their product.

Boston is the picture perfect example. Last month, Virgin America started service to Beantown, saturating the transcontinental market and directly competing with American Airlines. Soon thereafter, Southwest announced that they would be setting up camp in the Autumn. To compete with Virgin America? Perhaps.

In kind, American Airlines has now launched its own campaign, offering transcontinental passengers triple the miles on any flight. This means that after only two round trips, passengers can earn free domestic award travel on the airline. That’s a pretty outstanding deal and direct competition to both carriers.

Will this sway the fickle traveler back to American Airlines when Virgin America offers mood lighting and hipsterdome while Southwest provides zaniness and a robust route network? Maybe for the business traveler, but my guess is that the casual traveler will still go with the younger, cooler airlines.

Southwest Airlines announces service to BOSTON

by Grant Martin on

At long last, Boston has been freed from the grips of legacy carriers. Virgin America just started service to Beantown this month, and tomorrow morning, Southwest Airlines plans to announce that they will be starting flights. Coincidence? Maybe. Great for the everyday passenger? Definitely.

Because with Southwest, comes competition, and with their low fares (read: hedge) driving the market, other carriers are forced to match prices and in many cases, stop gouging. For example, for this blogger to get from Detroit to Boston it often costs more than to get from Detroit to Frankfurt, Germany. Compare that to Chicago or Baltimore, both Southwest cities, where I can often fly for under $150.

Sure, both Baltimore and Chicago (Midway) are hubs for Southwest, but the two gates that will soon operate out of Logan will definitely make the legacies think twice about gouging.

Southwest plans on starting service into Boston Logan this fall, and it can NOT come soon enough. CEO Gary Kelly will announce more details this (Thursday) morning, so stay tuned.

Southwest Airlines spices up a 7-3-7 with a bit of 34-24-35

by Scott Carmichael on

Southwest Airlines just unveiled their newest flying PR stunt in the sky. One of their 737’s has been decorated with a sexy photo of Israeli model Bar Refaeli.

This 23 year old (who by the way is taken, she’s dating Leonardo DiCaprio) appears on the cover of this months Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

Of course, the whole thing is really ironic, since it was Southwest Airlines that attempted to kick a passenger off one of their flights because she was dressed too sexy (she changed into something less provocative and was allowed to stay). Either they changed their minds about what exactly is “too sexy”, or they simply forgot about that little incident.

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(Top photo from: Blogsouthwest.com)

Southwest Airlines joins the “superskyway” with inflight Internet trials

by Scott Carmichael on

Southwest Airlines just announced their first inflight WiFi trial. The service is installed on one of their 540 planes, with an additional 3 planes to be equipped by March.

Access is provided by Row 44 – who opted for a satellite-to-plane system, unlike the technology in use by Aircell who use a ground-to-plane system.

In addition to the inflight internet access, Southwest also partnered with Yahoo! to create a custom homepage for each flight. The page contains destination information, a live route map as well as a collection of Yahoo! games.

Southwest is the last of the major carriers to commit to bringing wireless Internet access to their fleet, but as the largest US carrier (in terms of passenger numbers), I’m sure a commitment like this is not something you do overnight.

The Southwest Airlines inflight Internet service has not yet received FCC approval, and no pricing has been determined. During the trial, passengers can connect to the service for free. Any WiFi enabled device should be able to get online during the flight, including laptops, iPhones and any other smartphone.

Pretty soon the news we post about airborne Internet will be about the airlines that do not offer this service. Oh, and just so we are clear about something, the term “Superskyway” is theirs – not mine!

(Via: Southwest Airlines blog)