Does the movie theater charge you extra to go to the head of the line? Or line up patrons on the basis of how often they go to the movies? :confused:

Yes they do. They have lines for each showing where you line up like the old days at SWA. They starting to let people in to the theater about 30 minutes before show starts. They people throw all their stuff on the seats while their seat mates go get refreshment.

One time there were two guys that cut in line while everyone else waited in the right line, the usher cut them off and told them the line starts over there.

EXACTLY MY POINT. lol

I'm confused how these factors impact the notion of 'open seating' and the definition of an 'available seat'. Seems like a reasonable comparison to me.

If I'm one of the last individuals entering the theater, and only the first rows are available, I'm certainly not going to try to grab someone's saved seat in the more highly desired mid-section.

It's a false analogy.

In addition to what rsteinmetz70112 mentioned, the theater would have to be 100% sold out for the comparison to be valid.

Sure does seem to be a lot of gymnastics required, to attribute the teen's arrival on the plane way before the parents as anything other than part of a plan to snake the folks who boarded between LOL.

Not a very good strawman, but if there was a theater where seating was a serious problem, then YES I would enquire about the policy and expect an employee to assist with a situation involving people showing up and saving prime seats.

I don't see how anyone can argue that the existing non-policy policy is a good one. Even the most ardent fan of the open-seating system at Southwest should realize that a consistent and known set of guidelines is better for everyone.

Way back when I used to proselytize heavily for Southwest -- and even to this day -- the number one reason for not flying WN is always stated to me as the open boarding policy. On their Facebook page, the topic of seat saving comes up often, and with increasing frequency. People don't like the system and the various issues it creates -- many of which are now exacerbated by the sale of premium boarding positions.

Southwest's boarding system causes the issues, and Southwest's ancillary-generating changes have made them worse, and yet Southwest does nothing to address it.

As I mentioned earlier, back in the days of the plastic boarding cards seating was truly first come first served. Family groups were not broken up because they usually got to the gate at the same time. If you wanted an early boarding position you got to the airport early and were in line when they started handing them out.

That is how movie theaters do it (except for those with reserved seating).

That is an equitable approach.

Surely if a couple sat down and one of the went to the bathroom or to get something to eat or drink no one really wants that seat, because in a movie theater the difference between seats are minimal.

However Southwest has significantly altered that equitable dynamic by offering to sell people Early Boarding or A1-15 Boarding or Business Select and by assigning Frequent Flyers low boarding numbers. This process causes family groups to be routinely separated. Even a person flying on as a Companion is separated from the person who earned the Companion Pass, Children are seperated from their Frequent Flyer parents.

Those people with low boarding numbers have an expectation that they will be able to choose a favorable seat because of their order. Southwest has promoted and profited from this policy.

This problem with seat saving has been exacerbated by the monetization of Boarding Priority. For Southwest to charge for a benefit and then abdicate responsibility for fairly administering that benefit is simply not reasonable.

For Southwest to issue it's FAs thick binders explaining in detail how to serve drinks and what should be in the Seat Back Pockets and offer it's customers no assistance resolving these issues is not responsible.

The easiest way is to go to reserved seating. I know some here don't like it, but it's the only way to insure that a scarce resource is distributed fairly among the groups Southwest desires to give priority.

I think you missed the point about using this site as a barometer regarding policy complaints. Who is telling you they don't fly Southwest because of their seating policy? Your friends, this site? We all know there are pros and cons with open boarding, seat-saving being a pro or con depending if you're a seat saver or trying to sit in a saved seat. But the seat-saving behavior is merely only one effect of open boarding. Southwest has mentioned quite a few times that they reevaluate the effectiveness of open boarding periodically. So it's not like they aren't aware of the limitations.

It's well documented on this site that quite a few business passengers prefer legacy airlines because of the assigned seating, upgrades, and international award travel. No question many folks do this.

For others like me, though, who do not live in a major hub, I fly Southwest because of their schedule and the ease of reward travel. And for those folks that actually are flying WN - not the ones who don't fly - seat-saving just can't be that big of an issue. Seat-saving occurs in multiple instances on every single flight. Yet how often do people get into pissing matches? You'd think it happens all the time if you frequent this site, but my wife and I combined have flown have flown WN hundreds of times and we've never seen this behavior. Not saying it doesn't happen, but it surely doesn't happen that often. I'd guess that the call centers don't get too many complaints because the folks actually flying the airline are more worried about flights being late, schedules, pricing, luggage, the way they are treated by WN employees, achieving AL and/or companion pass status. Seat-saving is way down the list... Hell, peanut-allergies are probably a bigger complaint and you don't see Southwest stopping their peanut service!

As for FB, I rarely see seat-saving complaints. Going back through two days of posts just now, I see one complaint where a couple of others jumped in. It wouldn't surprise me of these were FT posters. Maybe not.

Like I said, I think they've figured out that defining the policy one way or the other is going to end up pissing off more people than leaving it ambiguous. If that's the case, and you were executive SW management, would you change the current policy? I wouldn't.

No, I didn't miss the point. Your point is valid, but that's not what I was doing. I was specifically talking about the many, many interactions I've had over the years with friends, family, vendors, clients and other acquaintances. Nothing to do with FT.

I see no reason why defining the policy with a compromise position, along the lines of what has been suggested here before (save only center seats aft of exit row, save a single adjacent center seat per person) would "piss off" anyone.

Seat savers should find the position equitable, as it's actually an expansion of the current policy. If this doesn't meet their needs for boarding larger groups, it could be explained that they have fee-based options available to help.

Seat saver haters would benefit by the elimination of saved premium seats.

Defining the policy as such benefits Southwest by increasing the value of their ancillary boarding products, which in turn would increase fee income. It would also reduce the instances of on-board altercations and provide FAs a clear policy with which to refer while boarding, making their jobs easier and reducing overall boarding time.

If I were WN management, I'd absolutely clarify the current policy. Absolutely.

The worst part of the notion that it's okay to save seats IMO is it encourages idiots to save seats for non-existent passengers. Mostly though, I agree with the posts that opine that Southwest sees advantages in ambiguity.

You know what really TICKS me off though? Posts that could use the phrase tick off, but instead...

That's your outsider's opinion - and it's valid. But you aren't privy to all the information they have. What if senior management has studied the issue (which I'm sure they have) and determined that the cure was worse than the disease?

I assume you're a frequent flyer and many of the folks you've had interactions with are FF's, too. That wouldn't be a representative sample of WN's customer base.

While seat-saving is definitely a pet peeve on this forum, I bet it wouldn't even make the list of top-5 negative WN experiences on this board. Hell, maybe it would...

And I don't think they are losing sleep over it. They still carry millions of passengers each year.

Having been in high level corporate meetings (But not Southwest's) It's always amazed me how little real information they have.

I would be willing to bet they haven't studied it since the last talk about assigned seating leading up to the current boarding system. Which has since been modified significantly to assign priority in different ways. They have the perfect laboratory right now with Airtran.

I'd also be willing to bet that part of the reluctance to clarify the policy is that they don't have an agreement with the Flight Attendants and adding seat referee to their duties would not be popular with them, making getting an agreement more difficult.