Southwest was low cost for me as an elite. Good features, including SDC and a good seat every time, even on the fares comparable to OALs' Basic. No funds expiration, so I booked every fare sale months ahead. No other airline matched this combination of price and flexibility. Even as a non-elite, Southwest's value was superior even though the price was not.

guilty of seat saving which has worked great for me for the better part of 2 decades except for an isolated incident. That said I fully welcome assigned seats as (1) we get them free as credit card perks (2) I rarely book last minute and (3) from what I gather most WN customers are too cheap to pay for seat rez or the higher bundled fare.

exactly. There were what, maybe a handful of exit row seats, and they were so �good� they were often still open when B group boarded as most of the cattle preferred the up front seats. And row 1 was never desirable due to lack of overhead space plus no tray table or seat back to mount my iPad.

Absolutely, you hit the nail on the head. As you said , a vast vast majority of the complainers here and elsewhere as well are the abusers , savers, gaming the system folks. We "used" to get in first and "save" seats "without" paying for it and we cant do it now. S Southwest , we will never fly you again LOL ! Well , guess what, the next time WN has a $79 sale coming up for a backrow middle seat , I am flying WN again because whatever !

And WN is right in giving priority to last min expensive ticket purchasers, folks who pay for the seats upfront. Airlines are loyal as long as you pay for their premium stuff , thats just been the way since travel began. And WN has moved on from open seating etc etc . The system worked good until people abused it and now WN is making a complete U tur. Never luv'ed WN FAs more , they are enforcing the sit in your "assigned" seat even if the flight is half empty ! And if folks are upset by it, go Greyhound or fly a different airline. Sorry , but thats the truth !

WN is still superior to other airlines with refunds. It still has 6 months credit expiry. Whereas AA UA DL have a $99 fee to rebook. So , if you bought a $99 ticket on them, its pretty much useless if you make a change. But with WN, you still can use it for 6 months on their basic and 12 months for Choice. Ideally , I prefer WN go back to their never expire thing because they can have a captive audience but it is what it is and atleast have 6 months which for me atleast is a lot of time to rebook.

And you still get a "good" seat on WN, you just have to pay for it now. But going by some posters here, there are no "good" seats on WN , so why should it matter then ?

​​​​​​​Please stop denigrating people who are upset about the changes as abusers. It is not helpful to the discussion, and it's also absurd on its face.

I would be interested to see the parameters of your searches. For years, Southwest neglected its IT and engaged in odd pricing strategies: linear increases in flight prices in the two weeks preceding the flight, even if competitors' prices were much lower; shorter schedule openings and sky-high prices for flights more than a few months out; inability to offer red-eyes because the system could not contemplate a flight which landed after 1 AM CT; the Christmas 2022 systemwide meltdown, etc. Then there was the MAX8 debacle. It has been the contention of many loyalists that those problems depressed revenue, not the core business model.

Sorry , goes both ways, nobody is denigrating anyone. Just having a discussion as to why a lot of fliers prefer the new WN changes , not all changes for sure but enough to consider them or prefer to pay more for the extra amenities or even the "same" amenities which are less now for the basic economy purchasers. Just because folks have the ability to pay for extra comforts doesnt mean they are elitist as you refer.

yes WN could be more more expensive� these tended to be over holiday travel times at early booking and when booking flights under 21 days

southwest had historically been the driver in airfare sales. They were lower cost because they could get away with lower fares.

Yes thry had problems with limited service options between 2 city pairs that would drive up prices on some routes.

I said "many", not "ALL". It is possible to be someone who wasn't a pre-boarding abuser and seat saver who preferred open seating. But that is a minority, as Southwest's studies showed.

Open seating was introduced, not on day 1 of operations, but after multiple legal challenges that forced them to find a way to squeeze in one more flight per day back when they were only flying within Texas, in order to survive. When a 737-200 on a short flight is half full, open seating is no big deal.

They could have gone back to assigned seating years ago, but Southwest is very slow to change. Better late than never.

Southwest has never released the crosstabs or methodology of their "studies". Anyone who works in market research can tell you a corporation can engineer a survey to produce whatever outcome they want.

What would be the point of Southwest doing a fake survey? If they wanted to do seat assignments, they don't have to answer to anyone with a survey, they just do it.

I just can't figure out why anyone would be militantly pro-open seating who also isn't a scammer.

Open seating got me an aisle seat every time that I didn't board late, even if I changed to that flight at the gate. Open seating got me an empty middle most times because I selected my seat on that basis. Open seating got me 3 seats to sleep on most flights less than half full. Assigned seating lets me board late but loses all those features.

Other people have different preferences and priorities than you do.

The survey was calculated to elicit a majority in favor of assigned seating so they could justify charging fees for seats.

or they could have simply looked around aka �read the room� and saved $ doing the survey.

Grousing time is over. Free bags and open seating is not coming back. Deal with it accordingly

Welp... it's not gonna work like that anymore!

Regards