No more middle seats possibly full emails?
 

I booked a flight last week and swore I received an email, as I have several times in the last year, saying middle seats might be full. I made a note to call Southwest a few days later and did. The agent said they were no longer sending out those emails but allowed me to change my flight. We figured I might have been one of the last to get one or I was just mistaken. Was this change announced anywhere? I searched the forum and haven't seen anyone reference it.

I understand they want to get back to normal but I appreciated those messages which acted as an early alert to move my flight around if possible. Being based out of Florida, it's been a bonkers month with most flights full and more than once the messages prompted a change. If they aren't sending these out, I wonder if they will let us call and get a sense how full a flight might be?

I don't know if there was an announcement or anything, but my last trip (a couple of weeks ago) I did not receive those email notifications, but both the outbound and return flights were full.

The problem is your state is too popular. Florida flights and empty middle seats are mutually exclusive.

Not announced (just like the move back to the old boarding system), no more emails.

There's not really any open flights to move to anymore. Spring breaks and pent up demand baby! I for one am glad things are trending closer to normal.

I did get the email on 3/14 for my 3/17 ex-Florida flight. Haven't take any WN flight after that, so I didn't know it was stopped.

WN, just like other carriers, is moving back to normal operations. The broader issue is matching capacity to demand to keep PRASM high enough. No longer in simple survival mode.

Going forward, if you are seeing flights regularly with empty seats, look for a frequency cuts.

The flight I switched to had less than 50 people so it was a good trade. I do hope that customer service continues to provide load information when we call in to ask, even if it means paying more to switch to a less full flight on short notice.

My last 2 calls to Southwest have been top notch in terms of customer service and willingness to accommodate such changes.

With most of the older population becoming vaccinated and the younger 20 somethings not caring much about Covid, the US is quickly returning to business as usual. Even in NY, our travel quarantine ends April 1.

bingo! I refared an early am flight from cmh to fll in May as the price had dropped 50% in a few weeks. About 4 days later they axed it and put me on the next earliest arriving flight which is a 1 stop flight via atlanta.

Did they give you load information? I believe that in before times they considered load info proprietary and would not give that out.

I chnaged from a flight with 3 open seats to one with 40 open yesterday.

They won't give you all the loads if you blindly ask for a spreadsheet etc :) But once they already see you have a booking they have been very accomodating in my case to check things a day or two +/-.

I was on a flight from OKC to MCO via ATL. First flight was a load of 40. Everyone had their own row.

Connection had three open seats, somehow I got lucky that no one sat between me and the pax in the window. The only reason it wasn't full in an oversell was that six people didn't show.

Unfortunately no. I've gotten the same answer on my last 2 flights which is something along the lines of "we can't see that information anymore they took it away, all we can see is if there are more than 9 empty seats". I got that answer from a couple of reps and one even explained that they got special access during covid flight rules but that has been reverted. It's a shame because that was very helpful. Hopefully we won't need it at all in a few months but still would be nice to have for another 90 days or so.

Who are you asking? I usually ask at the gate and they usually tell me.