What I Learned This Past Year

Here’s a sign of too much travel:  Southwest Airlines sent me a birthday card this year. 

It’s been just over a year since I started this 100,000 mile commute thing. 

After next summer, the youngest of our kids will be off to college and – if I’m a nice guy and make up my Grand Canyon mess-up – then my wife will move out to join me here and the long-distance commute will be over.

Here’s three things that I learned in the past 13 months commuting on Southwest Airlines:

1)     Be Nice.  Being nice always helps make the commute go by more quickly, especially on Southwest airlines, where the open seating on the airplane seems to encourage the passengers to talk more than they otherwise might. 

2)     Dress Nice & Wear Stripes.  When I wear a striped shirt and dress smart, I generally get invited to “pre-board” with the wheelchairs, babies and others needing extra time.  This only works when I dress nice, though.  Being 6ft-8-in (205cm) tall, getting on the plane early is important so this is a key rule for me.  After all, there are only 7 seats that fit me and my legs.

3)     Book Often & Early.  On Southwest, each ticket is valid for a year and can be applied to any other flight in case of cancellation.  This means I might buy tickets to go home on Thursday and Friday and then just use one of them and re-apply the funds from the other.  At any given time, I will have some thousands of dollars in my Southwest “bank account” – I like the flexibility and they like my business.

I learned a lot more on the job at PAS, and would need to write volumes to express it all, but here is a snapshot of some of these learnings:

1)     PAS has Great People.  In addition to the various Super-Geniuses around the organization, there are lots of highly-talented and highly-motivated people at PAS.  Just over 100 of them, at last count.  And working with winners like these makes even a commute like mine go by fast.

2)     PAS has Winning Technology.  I continue to be amazed at the range and depth of the technology at PAS – from the “Hidden Wizards”, to Alarm Management, Tools for Captain Integrity and more… PAS has about as broad a range of solutions and technology as a company this size can hold.  Opportunities abound.

3)     PAS is still a Relative Secret.  Our aim of 50%-plus growth for this year is about to become reality, and a good deal of that is due to our “getting the word out”.  PAS has had too few customer relationships in the past and all of that is changing now.  As our marketing efforts build, the future for the company (and my commute) look brighter by the week.  Why stop at 50% for 2007???

All in all, my first year at PAS has been a huge success and lots of fun – thanks to great people and superb solutions… and Southwest Airlines, of course!

If we haven’t met yet, we will… PAS is on a roll and we’ll be by your place soon.

Watch for us, or contact us today.

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