Southwest still knows something about people

Best Customer Service — Airlines, Americas · Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards

Airline loyalty programs have spent the last decade becoming increasingly sophisticated technology businesses.

Southwest apparently remembered there are humans involved.

Rapid Rewards wins Best Customer Service in the Americas for 2026.

This one feels particularly interesting because Southwest itself has been changing.

Assigned seating.

New fare structures.

Changes to traditions that once seemed almost inseparable from the Southwest identity.

For longtime customers, some of that has been unsettling.

Yet Freddie voters separated the evolving airline from the relationship they have with its loyalty program.

And they said something quite specific:

Southwest still takes care of us.

Customer service is perhaps the least spreadsheet-friendly Freddie category.

You can calculate cents per point until Excel begs for mercy.

Service gets remembered differently.

Usually when something goes wrong.

A cancelled flight.

A missing reservation.

A benefit that didn’t post.

An agent who fixed something.

Apparently enough things are still being fixed.

Southwest wins.

People matter.

Who knew?