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Are you not aware that US airlines pay a mandatory cash penalty to passengers for forcibly bumping them? Read this FAQ from Southwest.

The highlights are:

* They try to find volunteers, and give cash bonuses and vouchers to entice this (one-way ticket cost voucher + $100). If longer than 2 hours, $300 in cash plus the voucher.
* If passengers are forced to wait, they get a check for $675 or a voucher for double one-way fare, their choice, if under two hours delay. For longer, a max of $1,350 or voucher for four times one-way fare.

There are always a percentage of people that don't make their flight, and this helps to maximize the passenger load on the flights, at some occasional inconvenience to passengers. Given the financial penalties, airlines certainly don't want to consistently overbook either.

"Getting screwed?" It certainly wouldn't be pleasant to get forcibly bumped, but I think I could deal with the trauma of an hour delay for $675 in compensation.

At Southwest, we have a quick, easy, and efficient boarding process. First, check in to get assigned a boarding group (A, B, or C) and a boarding position (1 - 60). The earlier you check in, up to 24 hours prior to your flight, the earlier your assigned spot in line will be.

and

An adult traveling with a child four years old or younger may board during Family Boarding, which occurs after the “A” group has boarded and before the “B” group begins boarding.

His children were 6 and 9. He was also a frequent traveler of SouthWest and a "Line Leader"

If you want to guarantee that you’ll be one of the first to board, buy a Business Select fare to get an A1 - A15 boarding position.

What he was trying to do is to get his children (who had tickets in the B group) to board with him as part of the A1-A15 group. What he could have done was pay an additional amount on their fares to board with him:

When available, Upgraded Boarding allows you to secure an earlier boarding position in the A1 - A15 boarding group for just $40 per flight.

The media whores at Southwest Airlines have a sense of humor:

Whether the feedback is good or bad, we always appreciate hearing from our Customers via social media: http://social.southwest.com/Ee...

From SWA's web site: http://www.southwest.com/html/...

Do families get to preboard?
An adult traveling with a child four years old or younger may board during Family Boarding, which occurs after the "A" group has boarded and before the "B" group begins boarding. However, those Customers holding an "A" boarding pass should still board with the "A" boarding group.
**he fails this clause as his children are stated to be 6 and 9

Can groups assigned to different boarding positions board together?
Yes. However, in order to maintain the integrity of the boarding process, we ask that earlier boarding positions board with the later positions. For example, if a passenger is assigned position A16 and wants to board with a passenger assigned position A45, the passenger holding the A16 boarding pass should board with the A45 passenger.
The attendant correctly applied this clause and the customer disliked the enforcement of the rule solely because another agent had offered and exception. This is why companies so often state "no exceptions". Once you grant an exception you make the next employee look like a jerk for properly applying the rules.

Just because you chose to breed doesn't mean you get to just do whatever you want. We have rules. Following them, even when they don't get you what you want, is probably the best parenting you could do. This guy tried to show his kids he was special and didn't need to follow the rules. He'll never explain THAT to them, I'm sure.

That said the response of the attendant pulling him off the plane was unwarranted and stupid. She's created a PR headache, cost the airline money (I'm sure they'll give him vouchers), and probably delayed the flight as they had to account for all his luggage and possessions before they could allow pushback.

Southwest allows families with children aged 4 or under to board between the 'A' and 'B' groups, or during the 'A' group if the parent is in the 'A' group.

http://www.southwest.com/html/...

Do families get to pre board? An adult traveling with a child four years old or younger may board during Family Boarding, which occurs after the "A" group has boarded and before the "B" group begins boarding. However, those Customers holding an "A" boarding pass should still board with the "A" boarding group.

Can groups assigned to different boarding positions board together? Yes. However, in order to maintain the integrity of the boarding process, we ask that earlier boarding positions board with the later positions. For example, if a passenger is assigned position A16 and wants to board with a passenger assigned position A45, the passenger holding the A16 boarding pass should board with the A45 passenger.

If the recent Southwest flight I was on is any indication then they are actually doing a fairly good job with the QoS as there appeared to be quite a few people on the plane using the service. The cost was also fairly reasonable, $5 per device for the entire day so if you have a couple connections to make then you don't keep getting hit for the cost. However, based upon their website they are using satellite based services instead of ground based so they might have a more advanced network.

They did say they blocked streaming video though so that might be part of the reason the bandwidth was decent.

LA to NYC on Southwest is $133. So, yeah, GP was right.

You must be mistaken. Apple's app review process means that it's unpossible for an iOS app to do anything bad.

Just imagine how much damage Southwest could really do if they made an Android app.

Oh wait ... they did

Want to get away?

Try using cash to buy an airline ticket, for example. See you when you get out.

What do you mean "try" using cash? Southwest Airlines lists it as one of their accepted forms of payment:

Cash: Southwest Airlines accepts cash for payment of purchase at all airport ticket counter locations.

Don't let pesky little things like facts get in the way of a stupid post, though.

Gary Kelly is a Bean Counter. He was CFO prior to being named to his current position and it's just a way that they don't have to book you on another airline or pay for overnight accommodations if they have a mechanical problem. From a marketing perspective this is an incentive to buy "Travel Insurance." Bah...

http://www.southwest.com/swamedia/bios/gary_kelly.html

Despite the FA headline, 'mechanical difficulties' is in fact NOT in an acts of God list. Rather, they added it to their list of 'Force Majeure' events, along with 'acts of God.' From their Contract of Carriage:

Force Majeure Event means any event outside of Carrier’s control, including, without limitation, acts of God, meteorological events, such as storms, rain, wind, fire, fog, flooding, earthquakes, haze, volcanic eruption or any other event, including, without limitation, government action, disturbances or potentially volatile international conditions, civil commotions, riots, embargoes, wars, or hostilities, whether actual, threatened, or reported, strikes, work stoppage, slowdown, lockout or any other labor related dispute involving or affecting Carrier’s service, mechanical difficulties, Air Traffic Control, the inability to obtain fuel, labor or landing facilities for the flight in question or any fact not reasonably foreseen, anticipated or predicted by Carrier.

Likewise, the body of the FA correctly states that both mechanical difficulties and acts of God are in the same list. Of course, that doesn't make for such an eye-grabbing headline...

Nope, I don't think you're imagining things. I didn't realize it myself until this article appeared and I came across your comment.

I've done some web design, and so here's my basic <theory> below, typed as a stream of consciousness. As for making something look "Japanese", I think it's a result of various things:

Rounded Corners:
I don't these are strictly Japanese (see Slashdot's header, Southwest Airlines, Expedia, BBC (UK), Virgin Group (UK)). Though, rounded corners have made websites nicer to look at (not rigid - don't round/curvy things make people generally happy? Interpret as you wish.)

Pastel color scheme presence:
This may be a Japanese thing - all the non-Japanese sites I mentioned above generally employ primary colors. Two interesting US-based website examples are: Sprinkles Cupcakes and Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt. Both sites use lighter, non-primary colors and those color shades and combinations give me a sense of "fun" instead of "corporate". Note, though, that the different color shades aren't necessarily pastel-like in my opinion. One US-based website that uses something very close to pastel colors is Martha Stewart Omnimedia. We'll have to bring in a color expert to state whether Martha's colors are truly pastel.

At any rate, I think that only certain companies can satisfactorily use pastels in the US, and that would be companies dealing with fun food (cupcakes, frozen yogurt, etc) and hobbyist home decor arts/crafts. I think this is part to how I (and maybe you) without a Japanese background/surrounding/etc interpret colors and, as part of our respective cultures, have an understanding of what those colors represent. See this Visual Color Symbolism Chart by Culture and Color Symbolism Chart by Culture for a basic review. As noted in these two charts, "Green" in the US can mean money and trees and other things, but in China green hats mean a man's wife is cheating on him. One color, vastly different meanings! More information on "green" as a color: http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/colorselection/p/green.htm.

High-Context (Japanese) v. Low-Context (N. American, German-Speaking, etc) Cultures:
I came across this article while looking up cultureal color perception in Japan: Elizabeth Würtz's 2005 analysis titled: "A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Websites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures". In this study, she noted that Japan is a high-context (HC) culture, whereas North America (and German-speaking countries even moreso) are low-context (LC) cultures:

Face-to-face communication in HC cultures is thus characterized by an extensive use of non-verbal strategies for conveying meanings. These strategies usually take the shape of behavioral language, such as gestures, body language, silence, proximity and symbolic behavior, while conversation in LC cultures tends to be less physically animated, with the meaning depending on content and the spoken word.

What was interesting to read were two of her conclusions regarding animation and presentation of individuals+products on websites:

Animation:
Tendency in HC Cultures: High use of animation, especially in connection with images of moving people.
Tendency in LC Cultures: Lower use of

The terms don't exactly look secret. From: http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/cos_qa.html

The armrest is the definitive gauge for a Customer of size. It serves as the boundary between seats and measures 17 inches in width. Customers who are unable to lower both armrests and/or who compromise any portion of adjacent seating should proactively book the number of seats needed prior to travel.

In fact that looks pretty darn simple and straightforward (and fair) - if you fit in the seat (that's the bit between the armrests) then sit in it, otherwise buy more than one seat.

And he did, according to Kevin Smith http://twitter.com/ThatKevinSmith

In their "apology" blog, they implied (or flat-out wrote) that I regularly purchase 2 seats. Writing that buttresses their lie: 2 Fat 2 Fly. But, by their own guidelines, I was not, in fact, 2 Fat 2 Fly: the arm rests went down & I could buckle my seat belt w/o an extender. So...?

The terms don't exactly look secret. From: http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/cos_qa.html

The armrest is the definitive gauge for a Customer of size. It serves as the boundary between seats and measures 17 inches in width. Customers who are unable to lower both armrests and/or who compromise any portion of adjacent seating should proactively book the number of seats needed prior to travel.

In fact that looks pretty darn simple and straightforward (and fair) - if you fit in the seat (that's the bit between the armrests) then sit in it, otherwise buy more than one seat...

And if you read Kevin Smith's posts and listen to his blog you'll hear that he did fit between the armrests without trouble.

The terms don't exactly look secret. From: http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/cos_qa.html

The armrest is the definitive gauge for a Customer of size. It serves as the boundary between seats and measures 17 inches in width. Customers who are unable to lower both armrests and/or who compromise any portion of adjacent seating should proactively book the number of seats needed prior to travel.

In fact that looks pretty darn simple and straightforward (and fair) - if you fit in the seat (that's the bit between the armrests) then sit in it, otherwise buy more than one seat.

It'll still be a lot cheaper for fat people than tall people who have to pay for business class (ain't no special offers for upgrades if you're too tall to fit your knees behind the cattle class seat, I've tried). Furthermore, fat people can lose weight, tall people are stuck being tall.

According to http://www.southwest.com/travel_center/cos_qa.html

It sounds like the determination is made if you can not fit within the confines of a standard seat with the arm rests down on both sides. I wonder if they don't have a test airplane seat you can sit in before hand at the terminal before trying to board or set of measurements you can take at home before buying your ticket/boarding to reduce the potential for embarrassment of being forced off the plane once you try to seat onboard.

From the link above:
"I am a large person and use a seatbelt extension, but I fit in one aircraft seat. Do I have to purchase two seats? Our policy does not focus on weight, and the seatbelt extension is not the determining factor. We use the ability to lower the armrests as the gauge, as the armrests are truly the definitive boundary between each seat."

Another interesting tidibt from the link:
Are all overweight people subject to the policy?
Many Americans are "overweight" or "clinically obese." A number of overweight or obese people occupy only one seat. In fact, many Customers may use a seatbelt extension but occupy only one seat, and these Customers would not be asked to reserve a second seat. If a Customer cannot lower the armrest (and is unable to comfortably travel with it in the down position), he/she is required to pay for the additional seat occupied. Again, we will offer a refund if the flight does not oversell.

What kind of airlines do you fly on? All the major U.S. domestic carriers do, as far as I can tell. Just now spot-checked Continental, Delta, United, and Southwest.

How about you just don't fly? Or perhaps call reservations and talk to them about your issue and see if they can move you to a different flight if there's a cat on the plane? Same thing for peanuts... I know for a fact that you can tell Southwest that you have a peanut allergy and they will tell the ramp supervisor to stock extra alternate snacks and the flight attendants not to serve peanuts that flight (citation). Other airlines I'm sure have similar policies.

As for my Vertical Overabundance Disorder, perhaps you should take a look at your own signature. Also, thank you AC below for the magnesium tip... I'll look into that.

Purses, laptop bags, etc. usually count as your one "personal item." On Southwest for example, a laptop case and a bag of food, an extra coat, or a child's car seat would put you at your carry-on limit.

While that was a brilliant move, if you look at their 1Q07 earnings (available on their site at Quarterly Earnings, they reported record revenues - lower fuel costs can improve profit, but not revenues. There are other things they are doing right.

Trouble is, I'm not someone who likes to get to the airport 2 hours early and hang around. That pretty much dooms me to a middle seat someplace unpleasant, doesn't it?

You don't have to do that anymore. They've not yet put in all of the gate-area improvements mentioned (at least not at LAS and CMH, the last two airports I've been through), but as long as you get a sufficiently low boarding-pass number (they start at 21 unless you pay full fare, and hardly anybody does that) and as long as you're not boarding a flight that's continuing from somewhere else, you can get a good seat without "camping out." Setting an alarm on your cellphone so you can check in right at 24 hours before the flight definitely helps, especially if you can check in from your phone (works like a champ from my Treo).

The general consensus is that Southwest will start charging for A passes.

Who's saying that? Starting next month, it'll definitely pay off to check in ASAP (warning: Flash content ahead), but I've not heard anything about having to pay extra for an A pass. It'll be nice to not have to camp out for an exit-row seat (or whatever kind of seat you prefer).

Deregulation brought about intense competition in airline fares. The flying public wants to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. As a result, the airlines have been under continued pressure to reduce costs to stay competitive. This has resulted in charging for meals and in some cases, even pillows.


That is because the commodity of airline transportation is highly fungible. It really doesn't make much difference which flight you take, or which airline, so long as certain basic minimums are met, one is as good as another.

This leaves the airlines little to compete on except price. So, the CEO is looking for something else. Something not offered by the competitors. SouthWest has had a strong advantage the past few years, they have had newer planes (faster, more efficient) and totally lucked out by buying massive options on fuel before the prices shot up. SouthWest is literally paying as much as 30% less for fuel than their competitors.

Combine all that with an otherwise 'tight ship' and SouthWest has spread to the entire US, only skipping the "no-man's land" of the north-central USA.

Point being, SouthWest is competing on price, and it has the mojo. So other companies have to find something else...

A significant number of Qantas flights are 24 hours long.

http://www.southwest.com/cgi-bin/buildItinerary2?r ef=bktrvl_gn

Well, his intentions were obviously meaningless, since I can apparently still print out my own boarding passes, legit or not.

It's a shame the TSA people think just like you, if people would quit trying to kill the messengers, we might start seeing something that looked more like security and less like cronies securing contracts.

IRC, the AMTRAK system was recently praised on CBS News as being the "most user friendly" system.

Only by comparison to their "human" operators. I want to ride Amtrack, but they make it hard to schedule (web, telephonically, in person), to get help, and their layovers are always so completely awful that the missus nixes the train.

No, seriously, I don't even try anymore. And the people working there who answer the phone are, in my experience, unfriendly and resentful of you taking their time to ask questions.

And I'm someone who wants to take Amtrack. Can you imagine someone who just wants to go from point A to point B? Shucks. If only SWA flew to where I need to go.

Southwest was selling tickets online in 1996, beating easyJet by about a year.

http://www.southwest.com/about_swa/airborne.html

Actually, you raise a couple of good points in this post that deserve clarification:

#1 Security screening for on demand charter ops is actually very light, and will probably stay that way. There is name checking for sure, but no toothpaste confiscation or gratuitous fondling. It will probably stay this way for quite some time due to the shear impracticalities of this.

#2 DOC's (Direct Operating Costs) for the aircraft you mention highlights a key shortcoming within the industry that effectively prevents normal people from accessing the business. A commercial aircraft, by definition, is one that makes money when it flies. Anything that costs $5 - $10 mile with such a small load cannot work, at least for cost driven peole - i.e. the rest of us. But, you might argue, the problem is that no one has ever asked a corporate jet to perform like a commercial aircraft. (Except perhaps the Challenger 600 series that begat the CRJ line, which has its own story.) To give you an idea on how messed up "the culture" of biz aviation is and why your DOC's are so high, compare the cost of a new windscreen on a Lear 60 vs. a Boeing 737. Hint: the Lear 60 part (same part almost) is about 10 times more expensive - why? Because the idiots that buy Lear 60's tend not to be price sensitive, .. i.e. like the rest of us. Hopefully Eclipse will fix that problem, but don't count on it.

#3 Eclipse is a manufacturer, not service developer. They want to sell more units by "hoping" that air taxi takes off, but some don't think it can / will under present cultural paradigm. When thinking about Air Charter for the Unwashed Masses you really have to look at companies like Southwest to see how they made it. They looked (in 1971) at a broken model / pricing structure and asked themselves how to quadruple the market size. Once they figured out their "best" price on a cost plus basis, they offered something that revolutionized scheduled air. Air taxi folks really don't think this way yet. DayJet might, but they also may have picked the wrong aircraft.

The key to the whole question of developing "Everyone's Air Taxi" is to tackle the utilization problem. If the aircraft (any aircraft, older or newer) flew 2000 hours per year instead of 800, then the prices (let's say on simple turboprops flying 500 miles or less) would be affordable for a larger swath of people. But for now, it will remain in the leagues of the stratosphere where people burn $10,000 a day for fun.

In order for air taxi to work, business owners need to think backwards from what they can sell (to the masses) and then get the utilization / cost structure on the aircraft to match it through proper planning. No one, to date, in air taxi has really attempted this. Great passion and ideas, but poor planning and execution.

Ding!

http://www.southwest.com/ has a deal for you.

Three words for security, fuzzy hand cuffs.

Southwest Airlines Chairman Herb Kelleher has said before that employees come first, and customers follow next. This is mentioned on their press bibliography page under "LUV in the air". Today they have the highest market capitalization of any airline in the world and one of the highest profit margins as well. They are the third largest airline in the world in terms of passengers carried. 'Nuff said.

"Here's a hint for all you future entrepreneurs: the only thing that will keep you profitable is to keep your customers happy and offer them a consistency in your performance -- product quality and customer service. Ignore the trends, the fads and trying to sell everything to everyone."

I would suggest that the best thing to keep you profitable is to keep your employees happy and offer them a positive, stimulating workplace in which to grow. There have been many stories over the years that I've heard which showed when a company focused on keeping the employee happy and motived, this translated into better customer satifaction and profit. Employees that come to work with a desire to do good, to contribute are people that come through the door with ideas on how to make the company better, with a desire to help the customer because they want that customer to like (believe) in their company.

Look at a company like Southwest airlines; right in their mission statement (http://www.southwest.com/about_swa/mission.html) page they publicly state the way they will treat their employees. The first quarter after 9/11 they where the only major carrier that continued to earn a profit. Some of that success must come from the three pronged framework of employee - customer - employer. By putting the customer first, it is a small step to putting the shareholder first and that leads to management looking at employees as numbers on a profit loss statement instead of valuable resources to help grow the company. Of course it is important to keep the customer happy, but it is short sighted to think it stops there.

Overall, I have the same feelings about Sony today. I avoid purchasing any of their products, but now that is in the forefront of my mind when I do want to buy something, I see how many product lines they are into. I purchased a 42" Samsung widescreen recently and now am glad that it was a good choice.

For example, on southwest.com's booking pages, javascript isn't needed, but it makes the experience much better.

With javascript, when you select a departure city, the list of destination cities changes so that only scheduled service is shown. It also allows the calendar to function for selecting dates.

So, yes, it works without javascript, but it's a pain. There's enough of this kind of thing out there that surfing w/out javascript isn't really an option for many people.

Not that it isn't a pita to have to wait, but I wait at least that long, or I take a taxi. The company is covering it for business, and if it's not business, then anyone who would be picking me up probably came in on the same plane as me.

In short, there are plenty of ways around a 40 minute wait that don't require a cell phone call from the air. So it's hardly a reason for me to have to suffer the droves of cell phone yappers in a cramped environment. Anyway, the only people who could possibly need to be at that level of constant contact have an entourage of people to take care of such things, or better yet, their own damn airplane. Think POTUS. People still flying a commercial airline don't need to be able to call from the air.

must the dang thing look like a killer whale?

Of course, I think the whole thing with cell phones and airplanes needs to be addressed. If it is dangerous to use cell phone while the aircraft is in flight, it should be checked somehow. I follow the rules but have occasionally forgotten to turn off my phone while it was stowed in my carry-on. In fact I once forgot to shut it off, had my bag gate-checked (on a tiny commuter aircraft), and retrieved it at the destination to see that I had missed several calls. I know that cell phones emit RF noise even while just receiving the ringing signal, because my computer speakers have a crappy unshielded amp and picks it up -- a distinctive popping sound.

Maybe once they figure out this problem, combination cell phones/PDAs will be allowed to be used on flights again.

Of course, I just looked at American Airlines' policy and they say that you may use cell phone/PDA combinations if the flight attendant can verify that the transmitting capabilites are turned off. Southwest Airlines' policy isn't so clear. So it apparantly varies by airline.

Of course, I think the whole thing with cell phones and airplanes needs to be addressed. If it is dangerous to use cell phone while the aircraft is in flight, it should be checked somehow. I follow the rules but have occasionally forgotten to turn off my phone while it was stowed in my carry-on. In fact I once forgot to shut it off, had my bag gate-checked (on a tiny commuter aircraft), and retrieved it at the destination to see that I had missed several calls. I know that cell phones emit RF noise even while just receiving the ringing signal, because my computer speakers have a crappy unshielded amp and picks it up -- a distinctive popping sound.

Maybe once they figure out this problem, combination cell phones/PDAs will be allowed to be used on flights again.

Of course, I just looked at American Airlines' policy and they say that you may use cell phone/PDA combinations if the flight attendant can verify that the transmitting capabilites are turned off. Southwest Airlines' policy isn't so clear. So it apparantly varies by airline.

Due to Wright Amendment restrictions we do not offer scheduled service between Dallas Love - DAL and Tampa - TPA.
You may purchase an itinerary for travel between Dallas Love - DAL and Tampa - TPA by:

Purchasing two separate one-way or roundtrip itineraries involving an intermediate city.

NOTE: Southwest Airlines requires at least 45 minutes between arrival at the first destination point and the departure to the second destination.

See more details on Flight Restrictions at Dallas Love Field.

I have done the same thing with Gallery, having people that use the printing services donate to the project. Is it that big of a mystery that when you treat customers right they do pay you back and keep you going? Besides, it helps cut down on your PR costs.

Ummmm where do you think Stelios got the EasyJet business model from? Answer: SW Air.

Institute a flat rate tax. The rich will continue to get richer and the poor will continue to fall. Hardly seems like an ideal world...

The rich and their fat cat accountants use every loop-hole and exemption to pay as little tax as possible. Institute a flat tax and remove all loop holes and deductions and the rich will likely pay more taxes than they do now.

Get rid of those Canadian's pesky social health care idea

The current wait in the ER is bad enough, I would hate to be put on a waiting list for every proceedure I wanted to have done.

is because of socialist controls and government bail outs

Or rather, in spite of...

Pure capitalism would mean there wouldn't be any airlines in bussiness from America right now.

Yeah, without the major airlines, there are no alternatives.

Pure capitalism would be when Johnny gets sick and mom can't pay, johnny dies.

Because without the government, we all become heartless bastards who don't give a damn about our neighbors. Just like without religion and the fear of eternal damnation, we all would turn into homocidal maniacs.

Pure capitalism would not have government funded schools or utilities, and we all know how well deregulation has worked....

Half-asses deregulation will always be a failure.

I can't beleive that Lufthansa, one of the crappiest airlines i've ever flown on...

All airlines have shitty airplanes. They put the really nices ones on the high-profit routes. I've flown on Lufthansa, KLM, United Airlines, Delta, Southwest, and some others that don't come to mind immediately. They all have stellar planes like the one you flew on British Airways. Also, they all have crappier, older planes. You just got unlucky on your Lufthansa flight(s).

It seems that you don't fly much...

Does anyone wonder why a previously #1 ranked company (Southwest Airlines) isn't even in the top 100 anymore? It's because the application process took so long and involved so many people (voluntarily) that they decided they would rather use those resources to do what they do best, serve their customers, not filling out "pat me on the back" applications.

"as a sometimes-traveler for work, and a huge nerd..."

Watch out for the Huge Nerd penalty when flying.

Maybe he wanted to take advantage of Southwest's Weekly Specials, "available only on southwest.com".

• Does the ADA apply to the web?
• 
  We can all agree that when the ADA was passed it didn't have the internet in mind. The defense will agrue that it therefore doesn't apply to the web. The procicution will argue that the internet has become a normal part of life for most people and that it should therefore be covered under the ADA. Would you be able to function "normally" if you couldn't use the net?
  
  
• Is the service provided by SW's website available to the ADA protected groups?
• 
  I don't think the facts of the case are in dispute. the plantif clearly can't use the sight and sence you've been there you know why. (You have been there right) The question then becomes could the plaintif have recieved the same service by some other means. (The telephone seems to be mentioned alot) the answer is here clearly no. In order to get the discounds for some of these programs you must use the web interface. To give and analogy in the brick and morter world, what would happen if you got %50 off movie tickets provided you only used the stairs?
  
  
• Assuming the two questions above are 'yes', must SouthWest change it's sight?
• 
  Here things get a bit trickier. SW must provide the same services offered on the web to ADA protected people. This could simple mean a note at the bottom of some pages stating that people with visual impairment may receive web only offers by phone. If on the other hand it is ruled that there is something intrinsically serviceable about SW's web page then they very well may have to change there sight.
  
  
• How would a guilt verdict effect the rest of the web?
• 
  First off this part will depend a lot on how the previous questions were answered. Second it will depend on what gets ruled as a service. To give an example, I'm fairly sure Hotmail doesn't work with the web reader. There is also the issue of what standards will have to be met. Wheel chair ramps must be wide enough to accommodate a standard wheelchair, and everyone knows how big that is because it's in the code. On the other hand there is no standard for web readers. Establishing one (if necessary) will be a long and painful processes with lots of lawyers involved.
  

• Does the ADA apply to the web?
• 
  We can all agree that when the ADA was passed it didn't have the internet in mind. The defense will agrue that it therefore doesn't apply to the web. The procicution will argue that the internet has become a normal part of life for most people and that it should therefore be covered under the ADA. Would you be able to function "normally" if you couldn't use the net?
  
  
• Is the service provided by SW's website available to the ADA protected groups?
• 
  I don't think the facts of the case are in dispute. the plantif clearly can't use the sight and sence you've been there you know why. (You have been there right) The question then becomes could the plaintif have recieved the same service by some other means. (The telephone seems to be mentioned alot) the answer is here clearly no. In order to get the discounds for some of these programs you must use the web interface. To give and analogy in the brick and morter world, what would happen if you got %50 off movie tickets provided you only used the stairs?
  
  
• Assuming the two questions above are 'yes', must SouthWest change it's sight?
• 
  Here things get a bit trickier. SW must provide the same services offered on the web to ADA protected people. This could simple mean a note at the bottom of some pages stating that people with visual impairment may receive web only offers by phone. If on the other hand it is ruled that there is something intrinsically serviceable about SW's web page then they very well may have to change there sight.
  
  
• How would a guilt verdict effect the rest of the web?
• 
  First off this part will depend a lot on how the previous questions were answered. Second it will depend on what gets ruled as a service. To give an example, I'm fairly sure Hotmail doesn't work with the web reader. There is also the issue of what standards will have to be met. Wheel chair ramps must be wide enough to accommodate a standard wheelchair, and everyone knows how big that is because it's in the code. On the other hand there is no standard for web readers. Establishing one (if necessary) will be a long and painful processes with lots of lawyers involved.
  

• Does the ADA apply to the web?
• 
  We can all agree that when the ADA was passed it didn't have the internet in mind. The defense will agrue that it therefore doesn't apply to the web. The procicution will argue that the internet has become a normal part of life for most people and that it should therefore be covered under the ADA. Would you be able to function "normally" if you couldn't use the net?
  
  
• Is the service provided by SW's website available to the ADA protected groups?
• 
  I don't think the facts of the case are in dispute. the plantif clearly can't use the sight and sence you've been there you know why. (You have been there right) The question then becomes could the plaintif have recieved the same service by some other means. (The telephone seems to be mentioned alot) the answer is here clearly no. In order to get the discounds for some of these programs you must use the web interface. To give and analogy in the brick and morter world, what would happen if you got %50 off movie tickets provided you only used the stairs?
  
  
• Assuming the two questions above are 'yes', must SouthWest change it's sight?
• 
  Here things get a bit trickier. SW must provide the same services offered on the web to ADA protected people. This could simple mean a note at the bottom of some pages stating that people with visual impairment may receive web only offers by phone. If on the other hand it is ruled that there is something intrinsically serviceable about SW's web page then they very well may have to change there sight.
  
  
• How would a guilt verdict effect the rest of the web?
• 
  First off this part will depend a lot on how the previous questions were answered. Second it will depend on what gets ruled as a service. To give an example, I'm fairly sure Hotmail doesn't work with the web reader. There is also the issue of what standards will have to be met. Wheel chair ramps must be wide enough to accommodate a standard wheelchair, and everyone knows how big that is because it's in the code. On the other hand there is no standard for web readers. Establishing one (if necessary) will be a long and painful processes with lots of lawyers involved.