I just saw a commercial for Southwest Air Lines. A bunch of folks are having a telecon, and are surprised to find that one of the participants is not in the office, and thus unavailable. A secretary pops her head into the conference room, and says that so-and-so is about to join them in person.

Then the announcer makes the point that travel is affordable--Southwest will get you anywhere for $299 one way.

Yeah, well, that's nice, I guess.

The problem is, that when I go to LAX, the longest security line that I see is at Terminal 1--Southwest. This is particularly irritating, because it holds up vehicular traffic as well, and since it's Terminal 1, it creates a bottleneck into the airport for other terminals. Once past the first terminal, the traffic flow improves signicantly.

Sure, you can fly cheap, if your time has no value, but who wants to stand in a long security line? Now admittedly, this may be because Southwest is prospering with its low fares, and low costs, and black ink. But they have to understand that they're not going to pull in business travelers with ads about how cheap their tickets are, if they know that they're going to have to get to the airport an hour earlier to stand in line in security. And you can't just blame Norm Mineta and his confederacy of dunces at DOT (though they undoubtedly make the problem worse), because it seems to be a problem unique to Southwest.

My question--is it just LAX, or are the Southwest lines worse than the others in other major cities?

Southwest at SeaTac seems pretty ordinary. Our son flies in from Spokane frequently, almost always on Southwest, and has never had a big security delay at either end.

Only have one security checkpoint for all airlines in San Antonio. The Southwest line at LAX is most likely longer because Southwest has more passengers. Also, the airlines don't control the security checkpoints. They belonged to the airport and now are federal. In my opinion, if Southwest owned its own screeners, they would do a much better job. I fly SW all the time and their people are outstanding.

Southwest at Baltimore-Washington Int'l is notoriously much worse than the others. My first post-9/11 flight was on United from BWI; I arrived 2 hours early because of the publicity about long lines, and was checked in and through United's security checkpoint in about 10 mintues. However, United has a dedicated gate and few flights there, while it's a major destination for SW.

Southwest at Baltimore-Washington Int'l is notoriously much worse than the others. My first post-9/11 flight was on United from BWI; I arrived 2 hours early because of the publicity about long lines, and was checked in and through United's security checkpoint in about 10 mintues. However, United has a dedicated gate and few flights there, while it's a major destination for SW.

Southwest isn't built for business travelers, its built for folks who want to fly as cheaply as possible. As a result, it discards basic comforts, like leg space, or assigned seats, or polite stewardesses in order to keep its ticket prices low.

Every flight experience I've had with them has been so uncomfortable (all out of BWI... and ALL pre-9-11) that I wouldn't care if they offered fares of 100 dollars round trip from BWI to LA, I'd shell out the extra bucks for a ticket with someone else.

Never mind having to wait in long lines... having to wait in long lines, only to find out that they just 'accidentally' gave your ticket to someone on standby, and that since they don't have assigned seating, and there are two of you, you won't be able to sit with your 12 year old little sister... and you get to sit on the runway for 2 hours before takeoff... and an additional two at landing, for a total of 12 hours travel time for a 7 hour trip... in seats so small that at 5'4, I'm even cramped in them... $299 one way sounds like a crap deal to me.

Southwest has created a culture of standing in line, and dedicated SW customers are experts at it. They show up at the gate early so that they can get one of the first group of boarding passes (1-30), then they stand in line at the gate itself for an hour lest anyone cut in ahead of them . . . all so that they can be the first on board and have their pick of overhead bins to stuff. Curiously, I've noticed SW flight attendants recently removing small items placed in the overhead bins by early boarders to make room for the oversized bags carried on by late boarders, forcing the early boarders to place these items where their feet would normally go, thus undoing whatever incentive there might have been for early boarding - but the culture of standing in line is ingrained, and loyal SW travelers aren't comfortable unless they're in one . . . preferably a long one.

Well, you get what you pay for, and SW will get you to where you're going . . . and quite often on the very same day! But while I'll use SW for vacation travel, I would never consider using them for business travel. When I fly business, I want NOT to have to stand in line, I want more room, I want the opportunity to upgrade to a better class of seating, etc, etc.

Opinion only: SW prides itself on never having had a flight mishap. But I think they'll eventually have a mishap on the ground given the excessive speeds they taxi at, trying to keep operations flowing . . . they taxi significantly faster than most other ground traffic, and one of these days . . .

Paul Woodford
Tucson AZ

At RDU (Raleigh-Durham), Southwest has by far the shortest security lines. That's also due to an airport quirk-- the Southwest ticketing area is located right near one security line in a particular terminal, whereas all the rest of the ticketing area are located right at the other security line. Sure, the Delta, USAir, etc. passengers could go down to the security line near Southwest, but most of them don't walk down that way. Hence, Southwest has the fastest security line. Certainly the shortest, by an order of magnitude or more. (This actually makes them do more thorough checks.)