Southwest announced some pretty major changes yesterday designed to attract more business travelers to the carrier.  The major points:
A new "business select" fare will be added.  For an additional $10-$30, you get to board first, receive double Rapid Rewards points (on flights longer than 750 miles; 1.25 points for flights less than 750 miles),  fully [...]

(Thanks to Upgrade Travel Better for this:)
You can read the original post for the details, but basically you can now convert 25,000 Continental OnePass miles (which is worth 1 r/t domestic flight on Continental) into 3 free flights on Southwest by converting the miles into Choice Hotel points (and then moving them around from there).  [...]

(Via Upgrade Travel Better):
I’m frequently asked how far in advance a person should buy a ticket to get the greatest savings.  I’ve always believed that booking way, way, way in advance was not the best course of action.  Turns out my hunch was correct.  Rick Seaney, who runs Farecompare, says that their research has found [...]

A Southwest Airlines employee was reprimanded after he asked a passenger to change his t-shirt because he thought it was offensive.  A Southwest spokesperson said that the airline did not have a dress code, so the passenger should have been permitted to fly. 
Oh, the shirt?  It had a drawing of a fisherman on it [...]

You may remember last year that American Airlines was fighting tooth-and-nail against changing the flight restrictions that plagued Dallas Love airport for years.  Well, turns out (as you would have guessed) that lifting the restrictions has only benefited passengers:  the number of flights has increased 9%, the number of passengers has increased 20%, and fares [...]

For some reason there’s been lots of Southwest news lately:
The airline announced that it will keep its much-loved and much-hated open seating policy after tests showed that customers preferred (huh?) the open seating.  They’re tweaking the current system a bit, further subdividing the boarding groups and giving you a specific number in line (ie, you’ll [...]

After hearing complaints from business travelers who whined about families pre-boarding, grabbing all the best seats before the first boarding group, Southwest Airlines has decided to have families board between groups A and B.  This is a strangely family-unfriendly move from an airline that has always treated kids well.  I appreciate that business travelers (like [...]

Southwest Airlines sure knows how to capitalize on some bad publicity:
The airline has launched a "mini-skirt sale" poking fun at the recent news that a flight attendant asked a woman wearing a mini skirt (miniskirt? mini-skirt?) to cover herself with a blanket or change clothes.  The press release from the carrier says, "The publicity caught [...]

A female passenger was recently asked to leave a Southwest flight prior to takeoff because airline staff considered her skirt to be too short and her top to be too revealing.  The woman, who happens to be a Hooters waitress (though that’s neither here nor there), was wearing a short skirt and tanktop on a [...]

The Dallas Morning News has an interesting look at the changes Southwest Airlines is considering making over the next 2 years or so.  Southwest has (obviously) been held up as a shining example of how to make an airline work in a miserable commercial environment.  But over the past 3 years or so, their consumer [...]