Travel
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Southwest airlines and flying into midway
mh, 5 month old daughter and i are taking a trip to chicago in august. I was just going to book our tickets and of course the price went up on united. so after some searching we can save $100pp on southwest, but we've never flown on them. how are they? also southwest only flies into midway, is that relatively close to chicago compared to o'hare?
Re: Southwest airlines and flying into midway
(I lived in Chicago for 5 years)
I LOVE Southwest and I LOVE Midway. I have made it from the train (which goes right from the Loop in about 30 minutes) through security and to my gate in less than 10 minutes. It's such a small airport and Southwest (and a few other small airlines) are the only one that fly out of it so the security line is always pretty small.
I live in Chicago and mostly fly Southwest because their prices are the best. Southwest is fine, there are no tv's or luxuries but I believe you still get a (very small) free snack. It is a row in the center and 3 seats on either side. The only thing I don't love about SW is they don't assign seats. You are assigned a letter and number and then you line up to board according to that and sit in any open seat as you board. I believe they let parents with babies board first.
I would recommend a sedan to get downtown if you arent traveling during rush hour. I hate the trains in Chicago, but thats just a personal preference. Depending on the time of day the traffic can be horrific going into the city from both airports, one isnt really better than the other. But Midway is much smaller and easier to get around than O'Hare.
I like Southwest - the boarding process is easy and quick, and I find that the flight attendants are so much friendlier than the other domestic airlines. Plus cancelling/changing flights is so much easier with SW (if you ever need to do that).
I have flown into Midway via SW a few times. Airport is way less crazy than O'Hare. Plus taking the train from the airport to downtown Chicago is super easy.
We flew Southwest for the first time last week (Midway to SFO and then home again), and I wasn't a huge fan. Saving on airfare and getting free checked bags was nice, but coming from elsewhere in IL, O'Hare was actually a closer drive for us. I've also flown out of O'Hare probably close to 25 times and thought it was much easier there. Because it's such a big airport, each major airline generally has their own terminal so security and checking bags typically went faster there than at Midway, at least in our experience.
Flying out of Midway on Southwest was OK, but coming back it was awful. Might have just been SFO though. We paid for early bird, which automatically checks you in and lets you have a higher group number, but the employees at SFO were handing out pre-boarding passes willy-nilly (supposed to be for those with disabilities or other needs for pre-boarding), plus people were blatantly announcing they were saving seats for people in like C group and the employees just let them do that. I felt our money spent on Early Bird for that flight was wasted and the boarding process was chaotic. However, the experience at Midway was a little better, so again, it might just have been SFO.
I fly southwest from DAL to MDW and back almost every month. The flight attendants are nice, the flights are rarely late and will sometimes even leave early. If you are checking any bags they are free. They allow families with children to board between the A and B groups. It is not worth paying the extra for early check in just make sure you check in as soon as you can, which begins 24 hrs before the flight leaves.
Midway is much smaller and easier to navigate than O'Hare. There is a train from midway to downtown Chicago. If you drive it is about 30 minutes depending on traffic.