Flying on Southwest Airlines may be hazardous to your health.

The problem with Ryanair (and the other European discount carriers) is
legroom. 29 inches is painful. At least Southwest, AirTran, and the other
U.S. discounters are all 31 inches or greater.

Jeff

"Simon Elliott" wrote in message
...
AJC writes
It was on either Ryanair or easyjet that I noticed they dealt with
this quite logically. If you needed preboarding, then you were not fit
to sit in an exit row, simple as that. In my recent experience of
airlines in Europe, they will not allow anything at all, even the
smallest item to encroach on the floor space near an exit.

Ryanair colour code the seats. If I remember rightly, most seats have a
yellow headrest cover, but seats in exit rows have a red headrest cover.
If you preboard, you're told by the cabin crew to pick any seat with a
yellow headrest cover.
--
Simon Elliott
http://www.ctsn.co.uk/

In article ,
Jeffrey Hacker wrote:

The problem with Ryanair (and the other European discount carriers) is
legroom. 29 inches is painful. At least Southwest, AirTran, and the other
U.S. discounters are all 31 inches or greater.

Southwest is at least 32''. With the exception of American's MRTC
and maybe Midwest, they have the best legroom in regular economy of
all US carriers.

mrtravel wrote in message . com...
Peter L wrote:


It is. It's been done on all the SW and UA flights I have been on the last
couple of years. But they don't have an agility test or mental test to see
if you are capable of doing it. They asked, you said yes, and that was
that.


Even without a test, I would think that if you are disabled enough to
require preboarding then you don't belong in the exit row.

I'd agree with that. I was on a QF flight recently and they have a
rule that says if you pre-board in a wheelchair, you don't get to sit
upstairs. Now that was an interesting discussion with these two
little old ladies. They felt capable enough to navigate the stairs
but by getting wheelchair service they got to board first. Talk about
entitlement mentality.

js

Vitaly Shmatikov wrote:

Jeffrey Hacker wrote:

The problem with Ryanair (and the other European discount carriers) is
legroom. 29 inches is painful. At least Southwest, AirTran, and the other
U.S. discounters are all 31 inches or greater.

Southwest is at least 32''. With the exception of American's MRTC
and maybe Midwest, they have the best legroom in regular economy of
all US carriers.

Midwest has seats spaced at 34 inches, as does JetBlue.

Delta has some aircraft with 34 inch spacing, but many are at 32 inch.

On Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:54:59 -0700, wrote:

Saturday in early August several infirm elderly people seated
themselves in middle emergency exit row seats on a Southwest Airlines
737 at Seatac Airport. In my experience this is not at all unusual.
Southwest uses a first-come, first-seated boarding rule. Infirm
elderly board before ordinary passengers and get first seat pick. The
middle emergency exit row seats are preferred by some of them because
of extra leg room.

This time a passenger informed one of the cabin crew that he did not
think an elderly woman sitting at an emergency exit could handle that
exit in case of an emergency. Additionally, there was baggage sticking
out from under a seat into her aisle.

The crew member went forward and returned with the pilot. She then
explained that the elderly woman was perfectly OK where she was as
long she was willing to handle her exit hatch in an emergency. The
answer as to whether that woman was strong enough to handle her exit
hatch was not mentioned. She also explained that passengers were
allowed to place any baggage they wanted to under any seat.

[snip]

I have a recent dense three page letter from Southwest Airlines. It
has two surprising (to me) interpretations of the U.S. federal
over-the-wing emergency exit (OWEE) row rules. OWEE is their acronym,
and it seems somewhat appropriate to me. It is what some children say
when they hurt. (Mommy, I have an owee.)

1. Infirm and elderly passengers who preboard Southwest airliners
because they need assistance have a RIGHT to sit anywhere in the OWEE
rows. They WILL be moved elsewhere by a crew member if they ask to be
moved. If another passenger objects, they WILL be moved ONLY if they
are unwilling to continue sitting in their OWEE row. They MAY be moved
elsewhere if a crew member notices they have an "external" disability.

2. A bag which is under the seat in front of an OWEE row is NOT an
obstruction of that row isle if it sticks out into the aisle.
Apparently, only a bag placed in the aisle is considered an
obstruction worthy of correction.

Who says only governments and militaries practice catch-22?

Southwest has a 22 year record of no fatalities. Obviously they expect
that record to continue into perpetuity without any actual OWEE use.

D. Touie wrote:

1. Infirm and elderly passengers who preboard Southwest airliners
because they need assistance have a RIGHT to sit anywhere in the OWEE
rows. They WILL be moved elsewhere by a crew member if they ask to be
moved. If another passenger objects, they WILL be moved ONLY if they
are unwilling to continue sitting in their OWEE row. They MAY be moved
elsewhere if a crew member notices they have an "external" disability.

What?? They have a right, due to their disability, to sit in a row that
restricts disabled people?


2. A bag which is under the seat in front of an OWEE row is NOT an
obstruction of that row isle if it sticks out into the aisle.
Apparently, only a bag placed in the aisle is considered an
obstruction worthy of correction.

What?? Does this means that if someone purposely places the bag in the
aisle, it is an obstruction, but if it accidently gets in the aisle, it
is not an obstruction?

This blatant disregard for customer safety makes me never want to fly
Southwest.

"AJC" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 16:44:33 GMT, mrtravel
wrote:

D. Touie wrote:

1. Infirm and elderly passengers who preboard Southwest airliners
because they need assistance have a RIGHT to sit anywhere in the OWEE
rows. They WILL be moved elsewhere by a crew member if they ask to be
moved. If another passenger objects, they WILL be moved ONLY if they
are unwilling to continue sitting in their OWEE row. They MAY be moved
elsewhere if a crew member notices they have an "external" disability.

What?? They have a right, due to their disability, to sit in a row that
restricts disabled people?


2. A bag which is under the seat in front of an OWEE row is NOT an
obstruction of that row isle if it sticks out into the aisle.
Apparently, only a bag placed in the aisle is considered an
obstruction worthy of correction.

What?? Does this means that if someone purposely places the bag in the
aisle, it is an obstruction, but if it accidently gets in the aisle, it
is not an obstruction?


Yes, this sounds incredible to me too. Southwest fly 737s, many
(most?) of the older generations with exit hatches that need to be
pulled open inwards, turned sideways and thrown out of the aircraft. I
have seen on some airlines explanatons of how heavy these hatches are,
and that it does take a certain amount of physical effort to perform
the task. I have never flown Southwest, nor as far as I remember any
US airline in an exit row, but elsewhere where I have had exit row
seats it has been stressed by the crew, and/or by written notices that
you must be capable of operating the exit, and that nothing must block
the floor space.
--==++AJC++==--