Thanks to our web editor and Apple computer consultant guru Jonathan Bare for that great post detailing his travails on his Midwest Airlines flights the other night.

As he said, with all the media emphasis on mergers, and high oil prices, and unhappy passengers, it’s important to remember the human beings, just like many of you, who work for an airline  — who go over and above in trying their best to provide good customer service.

I ran into an example yesterday when I went to check in for my Southwest Airlines’ flight in Phoenix.

As I noted here yesterday, the Southwest web site would not let me check in for my flight when I was still at home. So I just went ahead and left for the airport a bit earlier.

I got to the airport, attempted to check in using a kiosk. No go.

The kiosk told me I had to see a counter agent.

The counter agent told me I was on a cancelled flight and would have to stand in line for one particular agent — only one of a few who could, for whatever reason, reaccommodate me. Yes, Southwest was having some kind of computer problem.

Things were a bit stressful. Especially for the counter agents who had the computers that could do something.  Most of the terminals were not working correctly.

Actually even the one my agent was working on was only working so-so. She could put me on another flight to Vegas, but she could not give me a boarding pass.

She gave me some strange looking piece of paper to get through security with, and then I would have to stand in line again to get a boarding pass at the gate.

It was okay. I didn’t mind that much, especially when she got me on an earlier flight.

But “C” concourse was a bit nuts. Then again, I’m just glad it wasn’t a Friday.

But the thing I wanted to mention was that both my original counter agent and my eventual gate agent in the “C” concourse were doing the best they could, with phones ringing, computers that weren’t working, and complaining customers in front of them. Even with all this, they were still smiling, and going out of their way to be apologetic.

I don’t see how they (some of you)  do it.