Nasu

Why create an environment where passengers want to behave like angry animals. Too chaotic on Southwest for me.

m907

​​​​​​It is not true that Southwest's policy is literally 100% unchangeable. The federal government did not decide Southwest's policy. Southwest does.

Juanefny

easiest seats to get to on legacy airlines are first class seats. I do not see other airlines being required to give pre boarders free first class seats.

FlightNurse

Let's keep it real, ANY seats on a legacy airline are easy to get, just book the correct class. I have done the Early Bird check in on WN, and have gotten A-32 and A36, which has given me the seat I wanted.

Troopers

Easiest solution is to create a premium class..say the first 5 rows.

joshua362

I believe he is referring to the PHYSICAL ease of movement to and sitting down in a seat.

The accepted default seems to be to sit them in the first few rows for an easier physical time doing such.

It does beg the question why it is acceptable to force "disabled" passengers further into the plane, through the entire first class section. A shorter "walk" and larger seats be damned even if available?

LegalTender

On a single-class airline, a say-so is the endorsement.

Park 30 feet from Home Depot, you need a notarized medical certificate okayed by 2 agencies.

justhere

I think you've misunderstood. I said
To which, SacTownGuy said

Quote:

You are probably right and that's disappointing

Then you said I then asked you what's not true (referring back to the point that WN can't do anything about the preboard process without changing to assigned seats or the DOT changing the ACAA).
To which, you replied No one said WN couldn't change its policy. Of course they can change their policy. What they cannot change, and if you are referring to this part as not true, then you would be incorrect, is that they have to follow the ACAA. And as an airline that does not have assigned seating, they only have one choice for preboarding. See 14 CFR 382.83 (c). Well, technically, 2 choices as they could submit a different boarding plan than assigned seats or unassigned seats and hope that the DOT approves it.

justhere

To be fair, no one is forcing "disabled" passengers, or even disabled passengers, for that matter , further into the plane. The airline is providing them access to seats in the cabin the customer chose to purchase. Any customer, disabled or not, is free to purchase a first class seat if that seat and location on the aircraft more closely meets their needs. The ACAA isn't there to give free upgrades. It's there to make access to whatever you are trying to access, and entitled to access, as easy as possible for those that are covered by the ACAA.

beachmouse

Airlines that so have assigned seating do typically block the first/bulkhead row of the coach cabin for disabled passengers, leading to fewer steps for those disabled passengers booked into that class of service.

zdcatc12

On my PHL-BNA flight last night, I was talking to the flight attendants in the front. We were discussing the "preboarders" and how the system could be abused. I said that one of the reasons that I don't fly WN more is because of the open seating policy. Both of them said that they hate it also and I should write an email about it and send it in. I assume that not all flight attendants feel this way, but I found it interesting that right away they volunteered that they hate it.

justhere

As much as this topic gets discussed here, I think it's important to put it in perspective. The percentage of customers for any business that have an issue with something and complain in one way, shape, or form, is going to be much, much higher than the percentage of happy customers that take the time to put forward a compliment. For 2022, WN shows they carried 126.6 million passengers. So our, the general public's, ability to get any type of meaningful data about what most WN customers prefer, is extremely limited and anecdotal at best.

That said, it is interesting to note, if I read this correctly, that 2022 WN was not the US leader in enplanements. UA, DL, AA saw significant increases in 2022 vs 2021 while WN saw a much more modest increase. Whether that's because more people were travelling further afield than WN goes, or some other reason, I have no idea. But, again anecdotally, if WN had enough customers complaining about open seating, or WN was seeing significant loss of customers, I imagine they would have a pretty good idea if it's due to open seating and then adjust accordingly.

susanmckee

If Southwest's boarding process really saving the amount of time that it used to? These days People still carry too much crap on airplanes and have to store all that stuff before sitting down. Seems like they need to start assigning seats - might result in faster turnarounds.

Kevin AA

In my opinion, open seating has not saved them time for many years now. Southwest's open seating came about by chance back in the 1970's when they had 120 seat airplanes with low load factors and the need to turn them quickly.

A passenger asked a flight attendant ("stewardess" back then), "Where is 12C?" and the stewardess replied "just sit anywhere you want" on that particularly empty flight. That is when they realized there was no point in having assigned seats. The short turns were needed to squeeze in one more flight per day with their intra-Texas flights to stay in business.

The 20 minute turns, stewardesses with hot pants, normal sized 737's, normal amount of carry-ons, mostly empty middle seats, and quick airport security, are all history. Why they are pretending that open seating is preferable or saves time is ridiculous IMHO.

I remember when Allegiant Airlines used to offer $ seat assignments, or you could take open seating for free. They would board those with seat assignments first, and then everyone else can get on. That is gone as well, replaced with a fee for you choose your own seat in advance, or get a system-assigned seat assignment at check-in.

Southwest could give A-list and Business Select passengers seat assignments at no charge. They could charge more for seats at the front, resulting in plenty of availability for seats at the front for their best customers. Only the bulkhead row needs to be reserved for disabled passengers who truly need it. The money they make from Early Bird check-in (which I refuse to buy) can turn into revenue from seat assignment fees (which I'll pay for). Seat assignments vaporize the pre-boarding abuse.

jjbiv

I think the simplified boarding process on Southwest does still save time. They can start boarding 30 minutes prior to departure and still leave early while other airlines with similarly sized aircraft start earlier and still struggle to leave on-time.