Dan Webb

Southwest announced yesterday that they will be introducing the “cashless cabin” on September ninth. This isn’t exactly groundbreaking news as other airlines have taken this route, but they did so before I started this blog as far as I know.

Right now passengers use cash to purchase things like alcoholic beverages on Southwest. This process is slowed many times as the flight attendants often have to make change, and sometimes even ask passengers for help with making change, from what I’ve heard at FlyerTalk. So now each flight attendant will walk around with a machine that scans debit and credit cards. This FlyerTalk post says that receipts won’t have to be printed out for smaller purchases, which should help speed up the process.

Also, those who have the Southwest credit card will receive double credits on the drink purchases. Since drink purchases are fairly small they won’t earn a huge amount of points, but it’s something.

FlyerTalk also reports that if a customer wishes to pay in cash, he or she can buy a drink coupon book at the ticket counter.

Speaking of cash - one question that has come up in the past with other airlines going cashless is if it is legal. After all, dollars say on them that they are “legal tender for all debts, public and private.” The US Treasury has the answer for us:

There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing this rolled out!