Southwest Airlines Employee Reviews about "flight benefits"

Pros

- Flight benefits - 9.3% 401k match and profitsharing - Insurance coverage is great - low cost to employee and covers most things - Fun place to work

Cons

- Promotions are based on favoritism, not performance. The same people get recognized, while others who are performing at higher levels are overlooked - Promotions are also based on arbitrary years of experience - employees who have been there for years but perform poorly are rewarded with promotions, while high performers with fewer years are not promoted - If being compensated for performance is important to you, SWA is not the company for you. - Pay is under market, which makes it difficult to live near work in Dallas - We are constantly told how "lucky" we are to work here. However, other companies offer much better benefits (albeit, without the flight benefits). It often feels like the culture is manufactured as a way to ignore issues. For example, when employees brought up pay issues, we were told that because we have profitsharing and 401k match we have lower pay - No tuition reimbursement - There is a culture of ignoring issues and being afraid of negative feedback, which leaves issues unaddressed and allows low performers to continue to grow despite being unproductive

Pros

*Flight benefits with Southwest and nearly all other airlines worldwide. *The most generous company 401k match I've ever heard of. *Profit Sharing *Fun-loving work atmosphere! *Generous yearly wage raises and cost of living adjustments!! *The physical work as a ramp agent is pretty easy once you learn the routine. Team-work and safety-mindedness is always required! *Employee rewards program- we earn points monthly that can be redeemed for anything imaginable (visa gift cards, buddy passes, literally any physical item (Kitchen. Electronics, tools..) can be "purchased." * Your hardwork is recognized. * We're encouraged to move around. Open new stations, switch job positions - we hire from within first! Many coworkers have gone to headquarters for careers or became Flight Attendants. * Union shift differential pay monthly - you earn between $80 all the way up to $255 monthly based on shift time start and finish throughout a shift bid. * Union time off (vacation) is good. Including a free paid day off every month (floating holidays) to line up with your 2 days off or whenever you bid for. * Union. * Too many other benefits to mention...

Cons

*Weather - you can't control the weather though. * Shift time opportunities as a rookie aren't great, we bid for shifts based on Seniority. The payoff for sticking through it is worth it.

Pros

Great 401k flight benefits health insurance.

Cons

No work life balance. Good luck being able to use your flight benefits since you will never be able to take any time off. Expectations of a shift were 4pm until 1230am (if all the flights landed on time) and then be back to work for your next "shift" from 330am until 130pm. Then next month it's a different schedule, and then next month it's another different schedule and so on and so on.. I did that for 15 months and switching from 1st to 2nd to 3rd shift all the time completly burned me out.

Pros

Union. Every front line employee at southwest is union. Flight benefits - that's for you, your spouse or committed partner, all your kids under 18, And your parents (yep grandma and grandpa get free flights because you work there). Holiday pay. You end up making double time and a half if you work Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Cons

You don't make much money at first. About year 5 you can start to eat food other than ramen. Expect to work holidays at least for the first couple years. You won't enough have seniority to get it off.

Pros

Able to trade shifts with coworkers. Flight benefits. Work from home since Covid. Unlimited working hours.

Cons

You can only be sick 5 times a year. Coworkers charge you big money to “swap” shifts with them in order to save pto time. There’s only overtime when the company assigns it otherwise you can work 1,000 hours and it’s all at your base rate. You fly for free but that’s if you can make the flight. Your up against paying passengers so peak season, weekends, holidays, very hard to get a seat. Your calls are monitored and they pick apart everything you say or don’t say. Customers are rude, demanding, call you everything under the sun. But be nice or you’ll loose your job. Software you work in is ancient and they put money into everything else other than what would make your job easier. You repeat the same exact thing day in and day out. If you aren’t able to pay someone your entire check and give up your second child most coworkers won’t help you out by working for you. You can then only use sick time 5 times a year. If you hit 7 times your in a hearing fighting for your job. Oh you pay union dues but they don’t help you do a thing. If you notice most of the great reviews on here are people who don’t work over the phone. They also live in a fantasy world where it’s all rainbows and butterflies. Who your supervisor is determines if your job is ten times harder than the passengers make it. The only room for “growth” is if your willing to move from a call center to the airport or relocate to Dallas where all the good paying positions are that do little to no work. Health coverage is cheap but that’s because you’ll have moderate out of pocket costs especially if you need vision. If it’s too busy which is mostly everyday they can mandate you to stay late or start early usually two hours on top of your schedule. So that can mean 8-12 hr days. Your only paid extra if they force you to work. Calls are back to back to back. Not even time to take a sip of water in between. And if you block a call from coming in your in trouble. Your a robot. Everyone from the airport tells passengers to call customer service and we can’t help if they can’t help. Morale is horrible since COVID. Severely understaffed. I could go on forever but hopefully you get the point.

Pros

Flight benefits Flight Benefits Flight benefits

Cons

Small location micromanage large station management dont know how to do your job but they supervise you

Pros

You get free flight benefits. The pay is nice.

Cons

I feel like you have to sell your soul to work here. I’ve experienced lots of racism, sexism, homophobia, and even physical threats. I feel like the company doesn’t do much about it. I feel like you get in more trouble for raising concerns than actual offenders. I feel like in a high position, I get punished for reporting racism, sexism, and other things that I witness. It’s difficult knowing that people in other positions are being discriminated against like this while I have to be silent and take it. I feel like I get bullied and shut out (systemic oppression) for not keeping quiet about it. These opinions are my own and not the company’s. It’s not like you can just quit your job while you’re here. You get used to supporting your family and get stuck. There is a push for diversity and inclusion. But I feel like the diverse people who get hired want to keep their jobs. So, the same obstacles exist for minorities.

Pros

Lots of data to analyze, love my job, decent management that wants to see you grow, salary, 401k match, decent PTO accrual, flight benefits, alteryx & tableau

Cons

Can be a little fast paced with deadlines, handling multiple projects at once can be a challenge. Complications that come with not the cleanest data sources

Pros

Great health benefits, flight benefits, great coworkers and culture, lots of moving up potential (I got promoted several times in one year), great training, lots of mentors and people to motivate you and teach you. It was a great job to have in my early twenties to learn.

Cons

The job was listening to customers complain about their travel experience. That was a tough job and it can be very draining and soul-sucking. The company makes the job worth it though.

Pros

People, Culture, Flight benefits, 401k match

Cons

Salary, Career growth, Poor org design, Not enough resources, Top down decision making.