Southwest Adds A Much Needed Perk for Passengers
Southwest passengers will soon have a new amenity on their next flight. The low-cost carrier has finally debuted seat-back USB charging ports on their 737 MAX aircraft. The charging ports are both the USB A and USB C, which should cover most devices.
These upgrades were first announced in May of last year. The announcement also revealed enhanced Wi-Fi and larger overhead bins as part of a two billion dollars in planned investments.
“As we continue to welcome back loyal Customers and win new ones, these initiatives, combined with the best People in the industry, support our Purpose of connecting People to what’s most important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel,’ said Southwest CEO Bob Jordan at the time.
The lack of power aboard Southwest aircraft has been a source of complaint from passengers, as phones and tablets are an easy way to stay entertainment, or catch up on some reading on a fight.
In-flight power has become a popular perk and it offered by other major airlines such as United Airlines and Delta Airlines, although not on all aircraft.
“The ability to keep your devices charged while you are connected inflight is a request that we’ve heard consistently in ongoing conversations with our Customers,” said Tony Roach, Vice President of Customer Experience and Customer Relations. “With so much that our Customers love about doing business with Southwest, we’re constantly listening to our Employees and our Customers for improvement opportunities, and we’re excited to share some additional news and updates on this ongoing work.”
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I have been a loyal SW customer for decades. Love the airline. But, we just flew Jet Blue round trip from Fort Myers to White Plains this weekend and it highlighted once again, just how far ahead Jet Blue is over SW in customer comfort. 1st, you get assigned seats, which is nice, but not a deal killer for me with SW. 2nd, with a Jet Blue Credit card you get a free checked bag. So, my wife and I get a total of 2, which is not as good a baggage policy as SW, but still, just fine for me. Chargers are right there at the seats, they have free WiFi and they have a great entertainment system. If you want things like ear phones, a blanket, etc, you can buy them on board. Not SW. The seats are nice on Jet Blue and seem, in my mind, to have a bit more leg room. Maybe, maybe not. The places we can go on SW from Sarasota, Fort Myers and even Tampa are limited though. Very hard to go west from here (or actually any airline. Hope they can merge with Spirit and we can get some more westward and other travel options on Jet Blue.
Put more pop up stuff on the sight, it’s ,
They added usb power to ONE plane. Wow. One Plane. Only 10 to 15 years behind everyone else.