This policy explains what information CrewWX collects, why it exists, and what happens to it. It covers crewwx.com and the emails CrewWX sends.
A note from Lane
My views on privacy were shaped by watching Facebook go from an amazing free product that accepted no advertising and sold nothing, to a company that monetizes everything it knows about its users. I do not intend to go down that path. I will never sell your personal information.
CrewWX exists because I wanted it for my own trips. It runs on your trust, and the fastest way to lose that trust would be to treat your information as a product. Everything below is the specific version of that promise.
What we collect and why
| Information | Why it exists |
|---|---|
| Name (first, last, and an optional go-by name) | Greeting your emails and keeping account records straight |
| Email address | Where your morning briefs go |
| Employee number | Verifying you work at Southwest. It is used to send a one-time code to your company mailbox. The code itself is never stored in readable form. |
| Home airport | The go-home forecast on the last day of your trip |
| Your role (pilot or flight attendant) | Showing you only the announcements that apply to your job |
| Which calendar service you connect | Sending the right setup instructions, and seeing where people get stuck in setup |
| Your settings (units, how many nearby picks you want, how reserve days show, whether the other-items list appears) | Making the brief look the way you asked |
| Calendar link (your CrewHub/iCloud feed) | Reading your trips so CrewWX knows which cities and dates to brief, and listing the other items on that calendar for the next three days at the bottom of each brief (you can turn that list off in your settings) |
| Trip details parsed from that calendar, including hotel names when your calendar includes them | Building each morning's email and sorting nearby picks closest to your hotel |
| Link clicks | When you tap an event or pick in an email, the link passes through crewwx.com first so we can see which features are actually useful. It records that a link was clicked, along with the type of browser or device that tapped it, then sends you to the real destination. |
| Crew Picks shown to you, your votes, and your "Did You Try This?" thumbs-ups | Ranking picks and seeing which recommendations crew find useful |
| Crew Picks and notes you write | Sharing your recommendations with other crew (see Retention and deletion) |
| A record of which emails were sent to you, and when | Not sending the same brief twice, and counting sends |
| That you accepted the Terms (the time and version) | Keeping a record of your agreement |
| Where you heard about CrewWX, when you arrived through a tagged link such as crewwx.com/go/name | Seeing which outreach works |
CrewWX also keeps basic usage measurements: site traffic (counted with a web analytics service, see Cookies), signups, which email links get clicked, and how far you get through setup. What CrewWX doesn't do is run ad trackers or follow you around the web.
What we will never do
We will never sell, rent, or trade your personal information. CrewWX shows no ads today; if that ever changes, it will not involve giving anyone your personal information.
Who else handles pieces of your data
CrewWX runs on a small set of outside services. Each sees only what its job requires:
| Service | Job | What it sees |
|---|---|---|
| An email delivery service | Sends the briefs | Your email address and the content of your emails |
| A mail host | Runs the support@ and beta@ mailboxes | Anything you email to those addresses |
| A hosting provider | Runs the server | Everything, in the sense that the server lives there. Access is restricted to us. |
| A DNS and security service | Sits in front of the site | All web traffic to the site, including visitors' IP addresses |
| A web analytics service | Counts visits to the public pages | Which pages are visited, plus basic device and browser details. It is not loaded on pages you reach through a personal sign-in link. Its records are kept for 14 months. |
| Weather, event, and map data providers | Forecasts, events, and nearby places | City coordinates, hotel names, and city/date queries, never your identity |
| A backup storage provider | Holds the nightly encrypted copy of the database and settings file | An encrypted archive it cannot read |
During the beta
Some outbound CrewWX emails may be copied to [email protected], a mailbox only we read, so we can catch broken emails quickly. Which emails are copied varies: every user's first brief, a small standing panel of testers, and any account we're actively troubleshooting. After the product launches, a small group of users will continue to beta test upgrades to the service, and this monitoring will apply to their beta emails only.
Email practices
CrewWX sends your morning brief during trips, change alerts when a trip changes, and account emails (verification, setup, status). Every recurring email includes an unsubscribe link that works.
If you use the "email me a link" box on the signup page, that address is stored separately from user accounts. You get the link, at most one follow-up if you never came back, then silence. That email includes its own opt-out link.
Cookies
The site sets the cookies needed to protect its forms. The public pages also load a web analytics service, which sets its own cookies to count visits. It is not loaded on pages you reach through a personal sign-in link, such as your status, settings, verification, feedback and unsubscribe pages. We use it only to count traffic. CrewWX sets no advertising cookies.
Retention and deletion
Your information is kept while your account is active. Every recurring email's unsubscribe link lets you choose: pause your emails and keep your account (nothing is deleted, and you can pick back up anytime by contacting support), or delete your account outright, instantly and without waiting on a reply. You can also email [email protected] and we'll delete it for you, usually within 24 to 48 hours. Either way, most of what we hold about you (your calendar link, trip data, click history, and feedback records) is removed immediately.
A few things are kept on purpose:
- A Crew Pick or note you submitted stays visible to other crew (the recommendation itself is still useful), but is no longer linked to your name once your account is deleted.
- Counts of emails sent and of setup progress are kept for statistics. After you delete your account they hold no name or email, only an old internal number that no longer matches any account.
- Our operational logs, used only to debug delivery problems, are kept for 30 days and then deleted automatically. They are set up to leave out names and email addresses, and refer to an account only by an internal number.
Some copies are held by others. Our email delivery service deletes the emails it has sent, and its delivery logs, after 30 days. Mail sent or copied to support@ and beta@ sits in the mail host's mailboxes, where it is kept as long as CrewWX needs it and deleted whenever you ask.
If you asked for a signup reminder or joined the waiting list but never made an account, we keep your email only until the reminder or your turn has run its course, then delete it automatically. If you do make an account and later delete it, those records go too.
CrewWX keeps two sets of backups, both for 30 days. Our hosting provider backs up the whole server daily. Separately, an encrypted copy of the database and the server's settings file (which holds the keys CrewWX uses to reach its outside services) is stored each night with a different company, so trouble at one provider cannot take your account with it. That copy is encrypted with a key that is not kept on the server, which means the storage company cannot read it and neither could anyone who broke into the server. Your data is removed from the live system as soon as your account is deleted, but could still exist in one of these backups for up to about a month afterward.
Security
The site runs over HTTPS, server access is restricted, verification codes are never stored in readable form, and sign-in links expire quickly. No system is perfectly secure, and we won't pretend otherwise, but CrewWX is built to hold as little as possible and protect what it holds.
Changes to this policy
Changes get a new version number and effective date on this page. If a change matters, you'll get an email before it takes effect.
Contact
CrewWX™ is an independent service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Southwest Airlines Co. Southwest Airlines® is a registered trademark of Southwest Airlines Co. All rights reserved. CrewWX is not a Southwest Airlines product or service. Use of this tool is at your own discretion and subject to your employer’s applicable policies regarding personal device use and third-party applications.