Paying for priority boarding or for an extra half-inch of leg room is an old idea. Anyone's who's flown SleazyJet or Monarch is familiar with the idea.

I wonder what took WN so long.

Anyway, OT: I am absolutely ELATED by the news that priority boarding for families with brats will soon be history. I never understood how the decision to breed led to preferential treatment.

It was done to allow kids and parents to sit together. I did give up an isle seat once to allow a mother and her young daughter to sit together on a flight which was full since no one else would. I wished at the time they had pre-boarded.

To us it doesnt matter. As seasoned travelers, we will just make sure to get the first group of A boarding passes and board first.

And they will now have to do the same if they want to fly sitting next to Junior. ^

Incorrect. You're forgetting the post-A family boarding.

I see a thread out there about "assigned seating," but obviously that didn't come to be. However, what we will be getting soon is boarding by-the-numbers.

I, for one, believe that the new process will be better than the current process. I'm always getting very low numbers on my boarding passes, so, if that continues, the new process will work better for me than the current process.

Opinions and discussion?

Regardless of their new seating scheme, it still is a hassle not to have assigned seats. SWA is still creating a cattle call mentality with their new numbering procedures. When passengers board planes, they still fool around deciding where to sit. Give them a seat number and be done with it.

I happily pay a little more to fly on airlines with assigned seats, and in many cases those flights don't even cost me more money. Would I pay more for a preferred seat on SWA (aisle, bulkhead, etc.) Absolutely not! It's not just the lack of seat assignments that annoys me.

You have plenty of options for airlines which offer assigned seats. Leave "our" only open seating airline alone! We like it the way it is.

I'm pretty happy with the decision. I was concerned that they'd go to assigned seating which I definiately do not want. Automatic "A" for YL fares would be fine but I hope that they do not start selling "A" passes.

I wonder if Southwest isn't sync'd up, but then adds a certain amount of random error to mess up entities like BoardFirst.com? I also using an atomic time clock and find that it is always 30-60 seconds after the turn of the minute before Southwest will let you get your boarding pass. Based on last experience, I think about 45 seconds is the magic moment.

Last week I flew AA, ORD to MSP on an MD-80. 1 family with a baby tried to board with 1st and was specifically reject by the GA and told to board by their zone number.

I've noticed the same. My theory is there is a degree of lag between all the connected systems.

Except that you're forgetting that the average plane, most any plane that's predominantly coach (ie, anything except all-business or all-first planes) is full of infrequent flyers who fool around at least as much with figuring out where their assigned seat is (especially in summer, around holidays, etc).

(These overlap a lot with the tons of people in Group 3 or 5 who try to board with first-class, because they have no clue about boarding order, don't listen carefully to boarding annoucements, etc.)

So on Southwest they can just grab a seat without having to know its number or letter. On other airlines it's slower for them (and thus the people behind them), because for reason it takes them forever just to figure out how seat numbers work!

If people board Southwest so inefficiently, how are they able to get the 25-minute turn that other airlines can't seem to manage with same-size planes?

Yeah, isn't it funny that people who come to the Southwest board to complain about the lack of assigned seating and offer theories about why it's so bad are both ones who rarely fly Southwest and ones who wouldn't fly Southwest even if they changed this policy!

I agree the new system will be an improvement. But now it's a race to check in at 23:59:59 (or 23:59:15 according to FCfree's atomic clock). Before, if my flight leaves at noon tomorrow, I'm just fine if I check in at 1:00. Now, the guy checking in at noon has a distinct advantage over the person checking in at 1:00.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/ar...st0924-ON.html

What is it that does annoy you then, the fact that your favorite airline is not as successful?