Southwest Airlines, good rates, feel like cattle

Ah yes, this trip to San Diego reminded me of the Joy of traveling on Southwest Air.

I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is, but there's no assigned seating.

They way it works is there is an A, B or C printed on your ticket. Then you queue up in your respective line, then they open each gate in alphabetical order, A first, then B, then C.

Then the way it works ism, you kill each other for the best seats. If you're in the C group, you can just suck it up in the middle seat. It really makes you feel like cattle and the vibe when you look at another passenger is more of a "You better not get my aisle seat, you bastard" kind of of a feeling rather than a "Hey fellow road warrior, sup?" state of mind.

I guess the theory is, that it loads and un-loads planes faster, but I just don't see it. Maybe they save 3 or 4 minutes.

Being 6 feet 3 inches tall, I always reserve an aisle seat, on other more civilized airlines, where they allow you to reserve a seat.

The only problem is, Sometimes Southwest has ridiculously low fares, or they have a direct flight to where I need to go when nobody else does. So sometimes you just gotta roll the dice and hope you get the seat you want.

So I'm back from San Diego, off the flying cattle car, and not really ready, but have to anyway, it's back to work. I'll be schlepping around the Pit (Silicon Valley) for the next couple of weeks, and there's a trip to Cleveland, Ohio in there somewhere too. I'm going to go slide on some snow tomorrow in the Sierra's and be back on the road Monday.

Uneventful Travels,
GT