Quote from Onan:
I'm a little confused though. Are you calling the AMA incident "an antic"?
End Quote
Pardon my incorrect paragraph structure, I do not think the AMA occurrence was an antic, I should have placed it in a separate paragraph. The FAA on their website is calling it an accident.
I’m starting to get concerned about SWA, in the AMA accident the news services said it got blown off the runway, it appears from the METAR report there was a thunderstorm with heavy rain possibly in progress at the time. The FAA says the nose wheel collapsed.
A previous accident:
26 JUN 2002 The NTSB determined that the probable cause of a Southwest Airlines B737 accident (on March 5, 2000) was the flight crew's excessive airspeed and flight path angle during the approach and landing at Burbank. The Board also attributed the cause of the accident to the crew's failure to abort the approach when stabilized approach criteria were not met.
Two landing accident within a year, is there a pattern developing?
As for not laying off people, if you pay people on the low side and accumulate the surplus then in hard times you have some cushion and management looks good.
In my opinion I do not think SWA presents a professional image to customers. From their orange hot pants to miniskirts and polo shirts. They have an in your face approach that they think is funny, flight attendants popping out of overhead bins, the captain making jokes that the head flight attendant is his ex-wife. I think flying is serious business and since 9/11 the bar has been raised farther. What’s next, now that crews can carry guns a SW pilot will probably announce on the PA he’s armed and if there’s any hijackers out there they can make his day.