The updated Southwest Airlines livery reflects the current options of the airline. They have no minimums callout, no GPWS callouts, no V1 callout, and also use the old analog standby attitude indicator. Clearly, SWA doesn't want a computer talking to their pilots. Would this be a matter of safety or economics?

Its ALL about SWA wanting to save money wherever they can save money

A lot of it came from situational awareness as well as having a smooth transition between aircraft, some pilots fly the 733 and 737 in the same day so it was easier for them to transition between aircraft. It actually makes a lot of sense, I think the just started using VNAV again in the last year.-Matt Chase

I can understand changing the -700 avionics package to reflect RNP ops along with A/T and Autobrake Testing but I cant figure out why they 1. Still have a gasper fan Along with a RECIRC Fan and why their -500's aren't updated with winglets nor expected to have upgraded avionics as the -300's are scheduled for. If anyone knows the answers to this I would appreciate it. Tristan.

I can understand changing the -700 avionics package to reflect RNP ops along with A/T and Autobrake Testing but I cant figure out why they 1. Still have a gasper fan Along with a RECIRC Fan and why their -500's aren't updated with winglets nor expected to have upgraded avionics as the -300's are scheduled for. If anyone knows the answers to this I would appreciate it.Tristan.

I would imagine many of the -500's are on the way out....ironically as there are probably more -200's operating in the world then -500's nowadays (what is was intended to replace.....-ish...no idea if this is true).Southwest probably has their schedule sorted out sufficiently enough to ensure good load factors on the larger -300 and -700 variants. The economics of the -500 probably just don't pay out enough for their liking.I wasn't aware that they had equipped NG's (that's what your talking bout right?) with seperate Gasper fan....maybe it's because of the hot climates or something they occasionally operate down south there...Now on the old -200's (only type I sorta know about), you could run the gasper fan with the packs off and it would produce a little air movement in the PSU's and flight compartment gaspers...so...perhaps the idea is an economics one...Perhaps SWA wants to be able to still move some air in the cabin with the Packs off, APU off, and without any ground equipment? A way to save some money?

The -600's has the same fuselage as the -500 and is waaay better on fuel as well so hopefully if phased out they replace them with the -600. Yeah the -700's has gasper fans as seen on airliners dot net under "southwest 737-700 cockpit" dated april and july 2011. As for economics not sure how much more efficiency gasper fans have overall then again maybe your right about it being economical. The AirTran 737-700's does not have it installed so not sure if they're going to phase them out or installed them on their acquired NG's. I sent a request for the PMDG team to implement a gasper fan option which hopefully we can expect maybe next year or so since they have more serious projects to tend to. Great point of views tho.-Tristan

There's some misinformation from certain people going on here I think...- I do not believe it was a cost thing for SWA regarding A/T and VNAV - all NG's come standard with those features and they *increase* efficiency, not decrease it! I think had everything to do with maintaining commonality with their 300s and 500s. Their classics had analog flight decks until very recently when they were retrofitted with EFIS displays and the newer MCPs/APs to support RNP operations.- Deactivating GPWS callouts doesn't save money. That's a standard feature as well - it probably again has to do with the commonality stuff.In general I think a lot of you don't give real pilots and real procedures enough credit here - not having computerized callouts, handlfying, and other stuff doesn't make a plane dangerous - the PNF is more than capable of calling them out him/herself, this is how it was done for decades and decades prior to the computerized stuff. SWA has never lost a passenger on-board one of their aircraft in an accident and I think the safety record speaks for itself - most of the world's major airlines only wish they had a record that good. I'd much rather be on an aircraft where the crew regularly handflys vs. some automation-is-the-rule place where you can get incidents like AF447 happening.

It might also have to do with operational philosophy. When a flight crew has to make all the calls, calculate and execute departure, climb, descent and approach profiles while hands on stick and throttle and at the same time eyeballing the intruments, then you don't have incidents like overflying your destination at cruise altutude while sleeping, um, I meant checking route schedules on your laptop in the flightdeck.Southwest may have been forced to upgrade to the more modern 73 options against their own operational philosophy because of the growing number of Rnav and now RNP approaches.JB