Alright folks, I just returned from a two day trip to Lubbock on Southwest. I live in San Antonio so I was able to experience the new, experimental boarding procedures. I will try to describe this as best as possible so bear with me.

First thing's first: The cattle chutes are gone at San Antonio International! The gates now have barriers (or in some cases, metal poles) that divide the boarding "area" into two sides. Two LCD monitors are at the front of the boarding area. The monitors display the the boarding group and position numbers on each side (1 - 30 on the left, 31 - 60 on the right). Each side of the barrier is marked 1 - 5, 6 - 10, and so on.

The boarding procedure went like this:
We were told to line up, in numerical order, according to the markings on the barrier. Although we did not have an employee checking if we lined up properly, passengers were checking numbers around them to make sure they were in the right place (I was A6, sandwiched between A5 and A7). I want to stress that the open seating policy has not been eliminated and that the numbers only pertain to the boarding call. The time elapsed from the point we were told to line up from the point we actually started boarding was about two minutes.

Preboarding:
Preboarding consisted of passengers with a "medically-cleared disability". Also, I believe they announced that families with children four years old or younger did not qualify for preboarding, which I think is change from the previous procedure. I could be wrong about that.

Everyone seemed to take the new change in stride. I did not hear any negative feedback from passengers. The new prodecure created a very relaxed, stress-free environment. I had a changeover in Dallas and had to deal with the chutes again. Sure enough, the new procedure works much better. Trust me folks, Southwest needs to implement this new boarding procedure nationwide as soon as possible.

Thanks for you time and patience, folks =)