Southwest Airlines Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Southwest Airlines full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Amazing Corporate Culture, benefits are awesome, and it truly feels like being part of a giant family.

Cons – Interns tend to get hired over Folks with company and outside experience for internal positions.This is especially true for Marketing and Communications positions.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't post internal positions and hire external Candidates, or say that two years of experience with the Company is preferred and hire someone with Internship experience only.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Southwest Airlines as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Able to communicate with others, endless opportunities to learn not only within your position, but the whole company. Everyone you meet truly has a servants heart and will go above and beyond to help you

Cons – The benefits include free (space available travel) and relatively low pay. The ability to fly is an incredible one, but also very tricky. Interns do not get any vacation or time off, as expected with it being an internship. But being able to travel on days besides friday evening and sunday, even if it is just once, would be amazing.

Advice to Senior Management – Your great! keep up the good listening!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Southwest Airlines full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Stability, benefits, opportunities to move around the company, some awesome people work here

Cons – As with any major corporation: Bureaucracy

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Southwest Airlines full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Best company I have ever worked for fly benefits everyone is very friendly they appreciate us always doing fun things endless volunteer opportunities. Corporate is great

Cons – But lately I see a change which makes me sad it should be about customer service with a smile not possible to do all that they want now in less then 300 seconds unless your rushing

Advice to Senior Management – Team leaders need to realize our mission statement & praise us for giving great customer service lets all be a team player we all have one goal to be successful together but to sit there & criticize bottom line did I help the customer & did I give great customer service not you helped to much

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Southwest Airlines

Pros – Great group of people to work with. Flight benefits.

Cons – Bad management in our department.

Former Employee – worked at Southwest Airlines

Pros – A great group of people and a well-run company that makes a great effort to take care of its employees. Excellent benefits and a generally good work environment.

Cons – The corporate culture can be a little over the top, but at least they try. Like any corporation, change takes time. Also, as a side note, some of the offices are a little rough around the edges.

Current Employee – been working at Southwest Airlines full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Management actually takes the time and effort to make its employee's feel like part of a big family from day one.

Cons – Sometimes I feel guilty for how much fun I have and how much food and drink I consume at official and unofficial Southwest parties.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Southwest Airlines full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great Health Benefits, Travel Benefits (standby only)

Cons – Schedule Changes monthly and is Seniority Based, Flight benefits are Standby and hard to come by. Most often you are bumped from flights if you don't travel in the AM, Management style is Micro-managing, Lots of senior employees BACK BITE, or run to management. Also, Union is of little help. Everything changes so frequently, and Company Barely train employees. When you start, you are trained over 10 percent of what you actually do, which is 90 percent of things. Management is over critical of your work. Company makes you feel they are DOING YOU A FAVOR, when they hire you because of the thousands of applicants that apply and are denied, plus the offering of possible free flights (which are STANDBY) and not guaranteed. Highly stressful environment. The ambulance always showed up weekly to wheel sick folks out of there. Company built a sick room for those sick. Most people around you were old and young sick individuals. Very mean Team leaders. Open door policy implemented, but you are MARKED if you use. Company tries too hard to PLEASE customers, which comes back to bite them. Now they change that, leading to droves of calls involving angry customers wanting free goodies, and always wanting to speak to a manager. Phone calls almost always involve a problem. When hired, company tried to ACT like everybody is so NICE and Positive. Different story when you get hired. Negative atmosphere. Horrible
experience! Salary is very low for all the work you do. People are paid more at 7-Eleven.

Advice to Senior Management – Change your attitude. Appreciate your workers. Actually work weekly in Customer Representative shoes to see what we go through. Stop backbiting. Accept employee feedback as a chance to improve. Increase your starting salary. Pay more for people with experience and education. Thoroughly train new employees on at least 80 percent of the job, instead of 10 percent. Survey your company on why so many employees are sick and the ambulance keep coming weekly to pick up sick folks. Stop acting like you are doing employees a favor by giving them jobs. Be more humble. Stop backbiting among employees. Make it a violation of policy.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Southwest Airlines full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – I cherish the wonderful friends I've made in the past. The true Southwest Airlines coworkers are the best.

Cons – Recently, with the AirTran merger SWA employees are being forced to follow AirTran's culture, which is based on manipulation, intimidation, and fear. AirTran employees are assigned by their boss to spy on Southwest workers as to when they arrive, leave the office, and even length of time for bathroom breaks. Scare tactics are used by the boss to make Southwest employees feel their jobs are on the line everyday. Working overtime with no compensation is not only unappreciated, but questioned by management as if the employee is to blame. In other words, management will try to fire you no matter how hard or smart you work. You can be a superstar or hero at the office, but still lose your job for taking too much EARNED vacation time. It makes no sense. As someone else has mentioned, Southwest Airlines has never had any layoffs. However, what's hidden is the many number of great workers who have been fired, forced to retire, or forced to quit.

Advice to Senior Management – Shouldn't have merged with AirTran, but too late now anyways. But there is still time to remove them from managerial roles in which they are completely incompetent in.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Southwest Airlines full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – There is an excellent opportunity to move up with in the company if you are willing to move.The benefits are excellent. Southwest also provides several different training options to further your career. Their leadership development is outstanding.

Cons – They pay is unacceptably low. Additionally there is very little additional compensation if you are a major producer.

Advice to Senior Management – N/A

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend