justhere

If murder isn't the issue then why bring it up? How much a fractional issue matters is very dependent on the issue. No reasonable person is going to compare seat saving to murder or curing cancer.

You are welcome to disagree but seat saving is not a life or death situation. It's a customer service issue and like many customer service metrics, the percentage of issues is a valid way to measure the impact it has on customers.

You wouldn't use the same metrics to determine whether or not to cure cancer or prevent murders or improve vehicle safety

Thus you are using a false equivalent to make your point and it doesn't work.

LegalTender

Proudelitist

Fractional significance is not a movable feast. If you are going to use it as a logical principle, it must be applicable universally..no matter if the issue is big or small. Logic doesn't care about gravitas. But just for fun, we can scale it to something simlar. Line cutters for example. A vast minority of people cut in line at the gate, compared to people who obey the signs. But should a GA ignore it if someone complains? Should they let the rare person with B who tries to board with A through? In effect, seat saving IS line cutting. GA's usually DO stop gross line jumping when it's the wrong boarding group..but why, if it is just a small fraction?

For those that don't mind seat savers, do you feel the same about dubious medical pre-boards and large range/group line jumpers? Or do you not make the connection that seat saving IS a collusive form of line jumping?

nsx

Pre-board abuse does not bother me. However there is one difference with seat saving. The typical seat saver is holding a middle seat in a non-exit row. The typical pre-boarder will choose a window or aisle. The latter category imposes nearly zero cost on anyone who checked in at T-24 or had a preassigned number at T-36.

justhere

To be clear, I made a hypothesis and extrapolated some data to point out that the likelihood is that seat saving is not a significant problem on WN. You were one of the posters that then tried to take what I said and compare it to murder, etc. I pointed out that you and the other poster were using a false equivalent to disprove my hypothesis.

That said, of course it matters what the issue is. 0.5% of customers unhappy about seat saving is not the same thing as not doing anything about murder because 0.5% of the population gets killed.

Seat saving may or may not be line cutting depending on whether or not someone ahead of the savee wants that seat. Or even more simply, if no one tries to sit in the middle seat next to me, did I save it? And as such it's not quite that easy to compare it to line jumping. The boarding order is established and formal and all things equal the same for every flight. Where people sit is very random and the order the seats are filled, while somewhat patterned, is still subject to a large number of random variables. And honestly, if one or two people cut the line, the odds are you wouldn't even know about it.

So once again, the number of seat saving issues compared to the number of enplanements would be a customer service metric. One that WN might, or might not, use to determine if they need to change their business rules. Given that it appears the percentage is very small, it also appears that it's just not the issue that some here would like it to be. None of which has any comparison to murder, cancer, head on collisions, or whether bears $h!# in the woods.

Troopers

Murder and cancer was an attempt to illustrate that using the number of enplanements is inappropriate, and a convenient way to minimize the issue. It's narrow-sighted. A more appropriate metric (denominator) is occurrence per flight. Also, it's appropriate to use more than one measureable. The number and frequency of the issue should be considered. Seat saving is an issue as evidenced by the near daily complaints on Twitter and WN Community blog, and the constraint threads here....it's (likely) the number one complaint. Also, financial impact should be considered. There are many reports that people have taken their business elsewhere because of seat saving (whereas I have never heard anyone say I fly WN because of seat saving).

Proudelitist

This is a highly contestable claim. I am not sure where this information was polled that indicates middle seats are the ones most often saved

Proudelitist

No, it's not a question of "may or may not". It mathematically IS. Every saved seat pushes the boarding order back one number behind it. If it's saved for B40 by A15, A16 becmes effectively A17 and so on until B40 boards. And the effect is cumulative, two saved seats pushes everyone back two behind until the person it is being held for boards. This is why it is tatamount to line cutting, and why, if WN offers better boarding numbers as paid-incentives, they are devaluing the product and keeping the money when they won't prevent it.

KNOWING about it makes no difference. You can still be victimized and not know it.

Yes, there are variables, but in an ideal situation where nobody saves seats, the integrity of the boarding order is preserved..and so is the money paid for EBCI etc.

Proudelitist

I would also add that the number of enplanments is not even relevant. It doesn't matter, because seat saving happens on each flight or close to it, on individual aircraft. From the paying pax perspective, the other flights that day or year are irrelevant to the fact it's happening to them, that day, at that time on that flight.

Troopers

I concur. Based on recent posts on WN community, more than one seat is saved.

Quote:

There isn’t teally a policy, only a suggestion. While standing at A19, as I do a few days a week I listen to the “you can board with the later of your group but you can not board early” announcement, I watch A13 board and save the entire exit row, the same one the flight attendant is standing next to. Over and over, she announces that “this row is saved” to other A group passengers, again right next to the flight attendant. When C group boards, two of the C Group get the prime exit row seats saved by this passenger, all while at least 12 people ask if they can sit there. The flight attendant totally allows this. I hate that the rule is not a rule, but a suggestion. I rely on Southwest to treat the boarding process seriously. I don’t fly AList Preferred so that passengers and flight attendants can ignore, change and totally devalue the policies I value with this airline.

Troopers

And on Twitter an hour ago:

justhere

I know that it was an attempt to illustrate the issue. That's my point that it DID NOT illustrate the issue. It incorrectly compared something that's not even remotely on the same level as something else. In other words it was a false comparison. It did nothing to prove or disprove that the number of emplanements was inappropriate to consider.

I hate to parse this out but look at what you wrote. "A more appropriate metric (denominator) is occurrence per flight". So the way to measure this is to take the number of saved seats and divide it by the number of saved seats?? So 100% of the seats are saved 100% of the time is your claim?? And if enplanements is, in fact, inappropriate, please do tell a better way to measure how many seats are saved compared to the number of people that could save a seat. Seems pretty straight forward. And to look at occurrence per flight doesn't change anything unless you are drilling down to specific routes. Otherwise occurrence per flight or total occurrences vs. total flights is going to be statistically the same. And I didn't say seat saving is not an issue. I've said that it's not the size of an issue that it is claimed to be. Large businesses always have issues and depending on the issue(s) they may or may not change something to address the issue(s). In other words, they'll look at metrics to determine their next step. And obviously, as of now, they haven't done anything about seat saving. Whether that's because they can't or won't could be debated but really how hard would it be to tell the FA's that seat saving isn't allowed and to publish that. They haven't, so a reasonable person would conclude that seat saving isn't a large scale issue.
You said that seat saving is line cutting and are now emphasizing that by saying it mathematically IS. In other words one is the other. They are identical. They are equal. There can be zero variance from that. I said it may or may not be line cutting. That is, they are sometimes equal, sometimes not. So to use your example, if A15 boards and sits in a window seat, then someone from A16 to B39 sits in the aisle seat, then B40 boards and sits in the middle next to A15, no harm, no foul, right? Because no seat was saved and they followed the boarding order. So no line cutting. Excellent. Except that A15 was saving the middle seat but no one asked to sit there and A15 didn't put anything on the seat so someone could have sat there if they wanted to. So same outcome but with seat saving. Ergo seat saving didn't equal line cutting in this case.

As far as devaluing the product, maybe so but I don't think I've ever said it does or doesn't devalue it. Not really my problem. As long as people are playing by the rules, which they are when saving a seat, I'm sure some people will feel that it does devalue EBCI. And I'm sure some people feel like it's great value. Again, that's a customer service issue for WN and they'll use whatever metrics they have to determine what, if anything to do about it.

Kevin AA

If B40 cuts the line and boards after A15, it has either no impact on A16-B39 or it has a negative impact. It NEVER has a positive impact. If something is either neutral or negative, then overall it's negative. It's very simple -- line cutting is a greedy selfish thing to do and Southwest should put a stop to it!

justhere

Who said B40 cut the line? I didn't. And I'm confused. So if everyone boards in order and no one saves a seat, i.e. neutral, then it's a negative experience?? Alrighty then.

LegalTender

There's confusion? I'm flabbergasted. Everyone's talking past the others' points to play last-post-wins. Cost-benefit numbers on seat saving will never be shared.

Absent scathing headlines, the airline is too nervous to meddle. GK calls the status quo "the essence" of the airline and says short-term revenue generators abound.