Review of Southwest Airlines flight from Orlando to Cincinnati in Economy

The background for this flight actually goes back to 2022 with a CVG-LGA flight with Southwest that never happened in the end and I got a credit from. In 2023 I wasn't able to use it and in 2024 I didn't go to the US. With Southwest's new changes to their system the credit would have expired and I'm not sure when I'll go to the US again.
This flight cost $67 (free with the credit) and was booked before they stopped offering free bags, so it included 2 free checked bags… it was a very good price. That said I was actually looking at alternatives and from different airports for a long time before the flight and wasn't completely sure about sticking with it even the night before the flight. In the end, nothing else worked out.
Technically this is part of a whole big Australia-US-Australia trip, but I feel like the coming to Orlando and the going back to Perth are two separate trips and routings while the other internal flights are kind of their own thing, so the routing is:

With these short flights there's not much to review, so the majority of the report is off the plane.

There's actually a really good view of the tarmac in parts of MCO just when driving by.

Now check-in was a little confusing. When entering the terminal there was a screen saying "Southwest - go left" and "Southwest Northeast flights - go right" (or something along those lines). I've never heard Cincinnati classified as northeast so I thought it would be on the left… but no. On the left side there was another, smaller sign:

In case you didn't see Cincinnati on there:

Boarding passes and baggage tags can be printed at the normal side, but bag drop has to be on the northeastern side.

There was a long, winding bag drop line. It actually moved very quickly despite there being just four counters open and dozens of people in the line.
This part of the airport was all Southwest, except for an empty Virgin Atlantic counter.

There were an impressive four departures on Virgin. Two to Heathrow, one Edinburgh and one Manchester.

The Southwest check-in area was much bigger.

If all the counters had been functioning there probably wouldn't be a line at all.

On May 28th Southwest made sweeping changes to its business model, with one of the biggest shifts ending its two free bags policy (in my opinion they should have kept one free bag and made that transition years ago). I thought many people might not realize that until arriving at the airport and I was right - just two counters down a disappointed-sounding man said, "I didn't know you guys did that," as he handed over his payment for the bag.
The whole check-in process took a few minutes but it was less than a minute at the counter. Which was a good thing, since the security line was huge, going out of the queing area. This was an issue the last time I flew out of MCO too, maybe just because it was holiday time. At least there was a nice little courtyard between check-in and security.

I had no idea there was a Hyatt here. What a location.

Once security was cleared there wasn't a whole lot of time until schedule boarding time even though I'd gotten to the airport early.
Then there was a train to the terminal where the area where the flights actually departed from, with some great views of the planes on the way.

The terminal was extremely crowded and there wasn't much seating available, so I went to look at another Southwest 737 (not the one on our flight).

Across from the gate, there was another screen showing flight info from the arriving flight. I also noticed that the flight was continuing to Nashville which somehow I didn't realize before!

Our plane arrived a little late, which pushed boarding back. Here it is: N244WN, a 19 year old 737-700.

Boarding was organized with groups, and people seemed to follow the sequence.

Once on the plane of course, it was just grab a seat where you can. I just went all the way to the back, I didn't want to bother trying to fight my way into an earlier seat.

Nice little heart.

Had the standard lights/vents but no charging. The headrest wasn't adjustable, the ceiling was also very low.

Interesting seatbelt design.

Normal tray table and seatback pocket with a sickness bag, safety card and an entertainment guide and drinks menu.

One side was drinks, one was IFE information.

Let's have a look at the entertainment… if the flight is actually 9h 26m I'll need it…

There was free texting available and it worked well.

There were a few Live TV channels.

And a small selection of movies and TV shows, nothing near what American had but enough for a short flight.

Ah, 1h 48m, that looks more like it.
Multiple times an announcement was made about "if you're playing movies or watching games" with the same wording both times.
Pushback with mostly other Southwest planes in this part of MCO.

One Avelo

And a bunch of parked Spirits and Frontiers

Something a bit more interesting, National Airlines (cargo).

And we're off!

The map had a little bot thing that sent messages including flight and destination info.

There was also a view from the cockpit.

Service began about an hour after takeoff. The crew (two elderly men, which is a bit unusual) first went row by row and took drink orders, then brought the snacks (there was no choice) and then the drinks.

I got sprite.

The napkin came with the drink and not the snack.

Not much happened for the rest of the flight. 

I noticed that when zooming in the plane on the map had a little shadow.

Cincinnati airport is actually on the southern side of the Ohio River, in Kentucky. We crossed the river and went past the airport.

As soon as we entered Ohio airspace there was suddenly quite heavy turbulence, which we sat through for a few minutes, going quite far into the northern Cincinnati suburbs before turning and heading back toward Kentucky.

Welcome to Cincinnati!
Messaging stopped working on landing.

A DHL plane took off just as we landed.

Lots of cargo airlines have fleets stationed in CVG.

Delta, once the leading carrier here as it was one of their major Midwestern hubs.

Nowdays, low-cost carrriers and the other majors are also big in Cincinnati.

The closest thing to a cabin picture I have.

Pretty much everyone got out in Cincinnati, it seemed like almost no one was continuing to Nashville.

There were nice big windows in the terminal, so I got another view of our plane while heading down to baggage claim.

Apparently the CVG code comes from Covington, Kentucky, which was the closest town to the airport originally.

Bags arrived pretty quickly, although I heard multiple people saying that their tags were gone. Ground handling may not have done a great job.

And this report ends here. Thanks for reading.