Southwest offers free in-flight non-alcoholic beverages with alcoholic beverages available as well for a price. Southwest is also one of the few airlines to offer Dr Pepper as a beverage option.[103] Southwest has complimentary peanuts or pretzels on all flights, and most flights have free Nabisco snacks. Southwest is known for colorful boarding announcements and crews that burst out in song. The singing is quite popular among passengers.[104]
Southwest maintains excellent customer satisfaction ratings; for many years, according to the Department of Transportation Southwest ranked number one (lowest number of complaints) of all U.S. airlines for customer complaints. Southwest Airlines has consistently received the fewest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded of all major U.S. carriers that have been reporting statistics to the Department of Transportation (DOT) since September 1987, which is when the DOT began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics and publishing its Air Travel Consumer Report.
Prior to 2007, Southwest boarded passengers by grouping the passengers into three groups, labeled A, B and C. Passengers would line up at their specified letter and board.[105] In 2007, Southwest modified their boarding procedure by introducing a number. Each passenger receives a letter (A, B or C) and a number 1 thru 60. Passengers line up in numerical order within each letter group.[105]