Flying with kids can be a painful experience for the whole family. Here’s a game my husband and I developed that kept our kids occupied while in line to board Southwest Airlines. Miraculously, it even kept them entertained once seated and waiting for other passengers to get settled.
It only works with Southwest Airlines because the airline has a different and quicker boarding procedures than other airlines. That boarding systems also makes Southwest more profitable. No wonder the flight attendants are always cracking jokes.
The Southwest Airlines System
Herb Kelleher drew up Southwest’s original Texas routes on a cocktail napkin. Herb was a prankster but his vision for a profitable discount airline was no joke. Southwest made money because it did away with a lot of luxuries we didn’t want to pay for. But mainly, it cut turnaround time to ten minutes versus one hour for many airlines.
That’s the time it takes to get a load of passengers off and another load of passengers on and get the plane back in the air. Planes only make money when they are flying. The ten-minute turnaround time was the Hail Mary pass that helped save the infant airline in 1972.
To make it happen, Southwest nixed assigned seating. You get an A, B, or C boarding pass and selected a seat once you were on the plane. To occupy my kids while we waited in our assigned group, we played this game. It also works with drunk adults! [Read more…]