Fly Southwest: DEN to Corning, New York

Well, well, well, fellow nomads of the sky, treaders of the fluffy cloud-ridden carpet towards far-off lands, delight in destiny's call to embark on a sojourn with Southwest from ye olde elevated city, Denver, to the glass creation hub, Corning! Join me on this unexpected carnival of round-trip aviation festivities, full to the brim with airy satire, idiosyncratic insights, and even a solitary tear might make an unbidden appearance. Rejoice, for you are about to experience a most extraordinary spectacle!

Economically speaking, the economy class on Southwest is a delight, a veritable feast on the meagre diet of airfare. But shouldn't it be? After all, the joy of flying is akin to the stirring dramatics of Macbeth, it all ends with someone saying "Out, out unbearably expensive direct flight airfare", right? Precisely. The 'cheap flights’ rhetoric bandied about by many an airline, is, in comparison to Southwest, a brutally unadorned mockery, a mere shadow of the significant savings one can behold when flying Southwest.

As a frequent flyer expressing an opinion, it’s luxuriously liberating to admit that your air travel survival no longer depends upon the soul-crushing 'baggage allowance'. Gone are the days when pondering and repacking your life's possessions into airline-prescribed luggage sizes constituted a large part of every trip. Southwest surely wins every passenger’s heart by saying, “Two suitcases? No problem! Bring ‘em along” like a hospitable grandma encouraging second helpings at the Sunday family dinner.

But lo! The plot thickens. Let's venture into the beloved realm of 'layovers.' Usually, they paint a miserable picture of untouched in-flight services, restless limbs, and mild panic as you ferret out the next gate. Southwest, in its infinite wisdom, chose to rewrite this tragedy with some added satire. They offer an unexpected solace—a fleeting oasis amidst the desert of connecting flights. Southwest's layovers are nearly as refreshing as stumbling upon an undiscovered Netflix series that is, miraculously, not about the superhero du jour.

And now, let us deliberate this airline's 'flight cancellation policy'. A term, which upon mere utterance, often demands a ceremonious lowering of eyes as if mourning the loss of long-departed ancestors and forgotten treasure chests of gold. Airlines' cancellation policies are akin to Pandora's box – deceptive, alluring, and with a nasty habit of releasing a torrent of hidden charges and rebooking penalties that makes one regret their decision of ever attempting to cancel. Yet Southwest, with a gleeful twinkle in its corporate eye, presents you with a harmonious alternative. No penalty, they proclaim! The conductor stands aside, waving his stick, and the orchestra of "no-show policy" falls silent. How wonderfully, poetically, amusingly ironical!

Though the stage has been set, the Southwest story could not possibly be complete without mentioning their Mileage Program. They dub it 'Rapid Rewards' and I must say, the name does hide a gleeful irony worthy of Wilde himself. You see, like a proud peacock showing off its shimmering tail to the dawn sun, airlines relish flashing their bafflingly complex frequent flyer programs – a cryptographic puzzle wrapped in an enigma, concealed inside a lunatic’s deranged paradox, further encased in an inscrutable algorithm.

The Rapid Rewards program, however, is as transparent as the glass creations of Corning itself, with clear earning and redeeming rules. A program, it seems, that has been designed keeping in mind the perennially confused traveler. And if that isn't a satirical thumb on the nose to the rest of the airline industry, I don't know what is.

So, dear reader, the time has come to gather your belongings and seat yourself in the parallel universe of Southwest flights from Denver to Corning. Pen these tales of amusing contrasts, highlight the dramatic irony, and remember the tears shed in laughter, befuddlement, or joy. Such is the emotion-packed spectacle of flying Southwest - a tale worth telling and a journey worth embarking upon!