Review: United Airlines A319-100 Economy Santa Ana to Denver
Review: Southwest Airlines 737-700 Economy Denver to Milwaukee
Trip Photos: Colorado and Milwaukee
Review: Southwest Airlines 737-800 Economy Milwaukee to Las Vegas
Review: Southwest Airlines 737-700 Economy Las Vegas to Los Angeles
YOUTUBE: United Airlines: Santa Ana to Denver
YOUTUBE: Southwest Airlines: Denver to Milwaukee
YOUTUBE: Southwest Airlines: Milwaukee to Las Vegas
YOUTUBE: Southwest Airlines: Las Vegas to Los Angeles
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another review! Today we will be flying my all time favorite low-cost carrier: Southwest Airlines. One thing that really sets them apart from any airline IN THE WORLD is the consistency of nice and hilarious crew. Many fantastic airlines have consistently very nice crew in my experience, such as Korean Air and Singapore Airlines. Southwest crew have that niceness and a great sense of humor on top of that. But I’ll talk more about that later.
Anyways we arrived at Denver Airport about 2 hours before our flight’s departure time which is more that enough for Southwest, but as usual, I love to spot.
Denver airport has one big hall where all the check-in counters are located for whichever airline you will be flying on. Then security is also in the same hall. The security line was super long, but because we had TSA pre-check, we were through in a matter of minutes. After security, there are trains that take you to the gates. Basically after everyone checks in, there are 3 different satellite terminals where your flight departs from depending on the airline. There are the A, B, and C terminals. Southwest is located at terminal C so we took the train all the way to the last stop. As soon as you disembark, you take an escalator up to the main departure level and that’s where all the SWA flights leave from. I got right to taking photos as soon as we went up the escalators.
Our aircraft arrived about 40 minutes late from its flight from Tampa. Honestly this delay is pretty normal for Southwest and I was not surprised. I call it “The Southwest Effect”. Basically what happens is that early flights are generally on time, then each flight has a small delay that gets added to the next flight for that aircraft. Eventually by the end of the day, the last flight has a lot of delays and therefore can be up to hours. Though ours was only 40 minutes. Eventually our flight did arrive and here it is:
- A flight heading to my home in LA
Eventually it was time to board, which began with people with disabilities, people with very young kids, and older people. Then boarding began by the usual zones. Unfortunately I did not check in for this flight quickly, so I got zone B30, which isn’t bad, but it isn’t good either. I still managed to get a window seat.
Southwest Airlines
DEN-MKE Boeing 737-700
All of southwest’s planes are in a 3-3 configuration. The views were definitely gorgeous on today’s flight. Unfortunately I would’ve had better pictures in the sky if it hadn’t been for the delay.
Now let’s get down to the seat. Southwest’s seat are pretty nice for a low cost carrier in my opinion. They are wide enough for a normal person to fit comfortably. The legroom won’t really be an issue, but if you put any bag under the seat in front of you that is bulky, that could significantly reduce the legroom. But my backpack was very tiny, so legroom was not an issue.
We began pushback after everyone was on board. I think all seats were taken if I recall. This is one of the many aspects I love about flight attendants on Southwest. Even though the airline may have a set way of doing the safety demontration, the flight attendants add their own twist to it and it can be quite entertaining. Some well known and funny versions of the safety video include a flight attendant who cracks jokes at many of the safety aspects, or the flight attendant who rapped the safety video. So there are many different variations one can fly to enjoy the comedy of the attendants. But anyways we were on our way to our departure runway, and for once I forgot which runway it was.
Soon after we departed towards a cloudy sky heading towards Milwaukee. The sky was something to enjoy until the sun completely set and there was nothing to see outside. Sorry for the blurry pictures, it’s the best I could do with my phone at that hour.
Our snack service had begun after that. So basically Southwest only served peanuts and cheese nips and basically any soft drinks. There is no buy-on-board food menu. This flight ran during the time of my dinner, so I picked up something at the airport and brought that with me onto the plane; the crew won’t ever have a problem. I also asked for Water with ice and a lemon, which nicely complimented the meal well for me.
I als tried to catch some photos with the BCN light illuminating the way, and sure enough I got that one lucky shot, but the photo quality is blurry due to the short exposure of the shot itself.
Eventually, we had begun our descent into Milwaukee. The views weren’t crazy amazing given the hour that we were landing. But there were some things to see on the way down. 
We had a smooth touchdown on runway 25L and a quick taxi to the gate. When I said Southwest had amazing crew, that applies to their pilots as well. After giving us arrival information, our captain finished off with “go Bears!” Milwaukee is very close to Chicago and the main football team of Chicago is the Bears while in Milwaukee, they support the Green Bay Packers, so they are rival teams and this announcement of course, sparked a lot of laughing throughout the cabin.
Here are some more pictures before arriving at the gate:
Overall, it was a great flight. Southwest always shows to have great crew and pilots. The seats are decent as long as you don’t have bulky items, the peanuts and cheese nips are always traditional to the airline and the myriad of free drinks that are available. For me, I’m more inclined to fly American, Delta, or United or Alaska because they are a part of a larger alliance and I would be able to accumulate miles under those programs. But if they were not a part of any alliances, and I had to choose an airline to fly in economy across the country, I would definitely hold Southwest high up on my list of choices.