A California woman won a 27.5 million dollar verdict against Southwest Airlines in a lawsuit that she was racially profiled by the airline and its flight attendants. Southwest Airlines accused Carrington of assaulting a flight attendant in midflight between Houston and Los Angeles. They diverted the aircraft to El Paso and had her taken off the flight.

Samantha Carrington of Santa Barbara, California, won her case Friday after suing the Dallas-based airline for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Federal authorities arrested her in 2003 after her Houston-to-Los Angeles flight made a scheduled stop in El Paso. She was never charged with a crime.

According to court records, three flight attendants said Carrington, a naturalized citizen from Iran, became verbally abusive, grabbed a flight attendant’s arm and threatened to go to the cockpit if the captain was not summoned.

Carrington, 54, said that the flight attendants were lying and that she was the one mistreated.

The high cost of fuel has forced Southwest  to add a surcharge to their ticket prices. I am glad of this as the death struggle that the airlines have been in has been devastating to the industry.

The increases range from $2 to $10 one-way, and they vary based on mileage and when a ticket is purchased. For example, someone buying a last-minute ticket for a coast-to-coast trip would see a one-way increase of $10. Someone buying a ticket in advance on a trip under 400 miles would see a one-way increase of $2.

The $20 round-trip increase amounts to the biggest single fare hike that Dallas-based Southwest has ever put in place.

Other airlines were quick to match the increase, which was put in place over the weekend. That included Houston-based Continental, American, Northwest, Delta and United.Southwest already raised fares once this year, airline analyst Jamie Baker of JPMorgan noted. This weekend’s increase covered markets that account for about two-thirds of the low-fare carrier’s network, he said in a report. via Chron.com

When an airline does not charge enough for their tickets to cover  the cost of doing business, they are essentially saying to their shareholders, you will subsidize the traveler out of your pocket so we can maintain market share. This is not that bad in the short term, but in the long term it is a terrible way to run a business.

And that is why the airlines are in the plight they are in now. If the airlines are smart, they will add another surcharge in the next month or two and make sure they are profitable and viable, as opposed to being stuck in a death spiral for market share.

The Low Cost Carriers are starting to have a huge battle with costs. JetBlue learned it could lose money this quarter, and Southwest is facing a huge, 600 million dollar, fuel cost increase as its hedges are running out. So now the battle  is to increase ticket prices to remain viable companies.

We need a higher average fare for our tickets,” said David Neeleman, chief executive officer at JetBlue, which reported its first quarterly loss this month and is forecasting a loss for all of 2006.
“We need to get another five bucks or 10 bucks if we really want to make some money,” he said.
Laura Wright, chief financial officer at Southwest, said it’s facing $600 million in higher fuel costs this year and will need to cover that expense.
“We’re going to have to see revenue improvement to cover those fuel costs,” she said. via Seattle PI.

It is a very rough time to be an airline. The industry needs to determine a pricing structure that works for themselves and the customers.

It looks like the options for the flying public will be increasing in the Boston and Providence area as a new rail line will be introduced connecting the regional airports.

Plans are under way to expand commuter rail service to T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I., by 2008, linking the airport with Boston via Providence.
In addition to many of the same carriers that fly in and out of Boston’s Logan International Airport, T.F. Green serves as a terminal for Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) of Dallas.
A second station is planned for North Kingstown, R.I., the Associated Press reported Monday, near the University of Rhode Island’s campus in Kingston. via bizjournals.com.

A lawsuit filed by a woman who was so overweight that Southwest required her to buy 2 seats. She did not file over the policy, but that she was discriminated against due to her being African American. A jury decided that her racial status had no bearing on Southwest’s decision and she lost her lawsuit yesterday.

The Exeter woman who lost a racial discrimination lawsuit against Southwest Airlines says she will not appeal because she does not want to be humiliated in public again.
Nadine Thompson, a cosmetics executive, said she has no desire to again be characterized “as a fat, black, foul-mouthed ghetto momma.
“It was the most humiliating thing I’ve ever gone through in my life,” she told the Portsmouth Herald.
Thompson accused Dallas-based Southwest of discriminating against her by singling her out on the flight and requesting that she buy a second seat. The airline said its employees made mistakes in the way they attempted to follow a policy of having large passengers buy a second seat, but denied any racial discrimination.
A U.S. District Court jury rejected Thompson’s discrimination complaint on Friday. via USATODAY.com

As reported here as a tip previously, Southwest has wised up and made remote check in a feature, allowing the traveler to print their boarding pass from the kiosks.

Travelers flying Southwest Airlines can now use their wireless computer connection to check-in for a flight, cancel boarding passes and obtain other flight information.

Any customer with a confirmed reservation and access to a wireless system with a web browser can take advantage of the new service by going to www.southwest.com or mobile.southwest.com via bizjournals.com.

This is a great tip from the blogger The Social Customer Manifesto on how to get to the head of the Southwest A-B-C seating game if you are in a hotel and can not print out your boarding pass.

If I didn’t check-in before I left the hotel, I’d be destined for a “Group C” boarding experience. But if I did check-in online, I wouldn’t have a boarding pass to get through security. What to do?

Then I remembered “the magic option” on the Southwest Airlines kiosks that I had seen when I had checked in for my outbound flight. That magic option? “Reprint Boarding Pass.” (I had actually needed to use this option when checking in for my outbound flight, as the first boarding pass had jammed coming out of the printer and had been ripped to ribbons in the process.) 

Read the rest at The Social Customer Manifesto.

With the demise of Independent Air, other airlines have provided alternatives for their ticket holders.

Visit these Airlines Sites to see how they can help you with your ticketing if you are holding an Independence Air ticket.

• AirTran Airways
• American Airlines
• ATA Airlines
• Continental Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Frontier Airlines
• JetBlue Airways
• Northwest Airlines
• Southwest Airlines
• United Airlines
• US Airways

I hope this helps travelers who are holding Independence Air tickets get to where they need to.

Southwest Airlines is committed to Midway International as a major part of their plans for the future. The central airport is well suited for the discount airline. The majors are focused on O’Hare, it is near the large population center of Chicago. and the airport is very receptive to having Southwest as it’s dominant carrier.

Southwest Airlines officials say they’re committed to expansion that could soon make Midway International Airport the carrier’s busiest, plans unchanged by the airline’s first fatal accident there earlier this month.

Two years of adding gates and flights already have made Midway the fastest-growing airport for Southwest, providing a strengthened base to compete with bigger rivals flying out of O’Hare International Airport across town.

Midway has surpassed Baltimore-Washington and tied Phoenix this year as Southwest’s No. 2 airport with 196 daily departures. According to a recent Citigroup report, it is expected to overtake Las Vegas to become the Dallas-based carrier’s largest airport by 2007. via USATODAY.com