Southwest moving to assigned seats

[simpsontruckdriver]

Like other companies Southwest is doing this to make more money.

TS

 

[Cornell]

Just when I was starting to love Southwest!

 

[dioxide45]

Like other companies Southwest is doing this to make more money.

TS

Certainly their current business model has issues. Sure it will help them make money but it will also reduce a lot of friction that they have at both the gate and during boarding. We don't know if there will be any charge to select a seat in advance. They are also planning to add premium seating with extra legroom.

 

[klpca]

People on social media definitely whine about this all the time. If it was up to me I would leave things as-is (but it is not up to me), so I will just deal with it.

In Cabo it was an issue because you line up in the airport then walk outside to a bus and the free-for-all starts. If you are first on the bus, you are probably last to get off so you are last to board. Because of that, we only flew Southwest from Cabo once - and after that it was "never again" when coming home from. So I guess that will be a win. The bottom line is that flying is just a different form of public transportation. You have to take the good with the bad.

 

[DrQ]

Maybe with assigned seats, when you BUY two seats, you can HAVE two seats:

Salt-N-Pepa's Sandra Denton details incident in which she was kicked off Southwest Airlines flight over conflict over seat she paid for: 'They have three police officers waiting for me and I was like, what?'​

Salt-N-Pepa's Sandra Denton explains Southwest flight incident

The 59-year-old rapper chat in detail about the course of events that occurred Monday as she sought to travel from Las Vegas , Nevada to Nashville, Tennessee.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[davidvel]

People on social media definitely whine about this all the time. If it was up to me I would leave things as-is (but it is not up to me), so I will just deal with it.

In Cabo it was an issue because you line up in the airport then walk outside to a bus and the free-for-all starts. If you are first on the bus, you are probably last to get off so you are last to board. Because of that, we only flew Southwest from Cabo once - and after that it was "never again" when coming home from. So I guess that will be a win. The bottom line is that flying is just a different form of public transportation. You have to take the good with the bad.

I don't understand this. People board in order of their seating number, not their position on the shuttle bus.

 

[klpca]

I don't understand this. People board in order of their seating number, not their position on the shuttle bus.

Cabo is unique (in my experience). Instead of going through the gate area to the jetway then on to the plane - in some semblance of order - you go outside to a waiting shuttle bus that takes you the the plane. Zero semblance of order. In fact complete chaos. So in Cabo we won't fly home on Southwest.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Watching the video, and the article and video do not correlate. I saw a video about increased pricing for Early Bird, nothing about assigned seating.

 

[dioxide45]

Maybe with assigned seats, when you BUY two seats, you can HAVE two seats:

Salt-N-Pepa's Sandra Denton details incident in which she was kicked off Southwest Airlines flight over conflict over seat she paid for: 'They have three police officers waiting for me and I was like, what?'​

Salt-N-Pepa's Sandra Denton explains Southwest flight incident

The 59-year-old rapper chat in detail about the course of events that occurred Monday as she sought to travel from Las Vegas , Nevada to Nashville, Tennessee.

www.dailymail.co.uk

That article is a bit of a mess, but from what I understand she was buying an extra seat for comfort. Something that Southwest doesn't have a policy for. They have a policy for customers of size, but that didn't apply to her. She had two tickets under the same name for the same flight. I would think her second boarding pass wouldn't scan or she doesn't get it scanned and the flight would still show an available seat which is why they continued to board passengers. The story is missing some details.

 

[DrQ]

That article is a bit of a mess, but from what I understand she was buying an extra seat for comfort. Something that Southwest doesn't have a policy for. They have a policy for customers of size, but that didn't apply to her. She had two tickets under the same name for the same flight. I would think her second boarding pass wouldn't scan or she doesn't get it scanned and the flight would still show an available seat which is why they continued to board passengers. The story is missing some details.

She is going to push discrimination under ADA. She had a car accident which had injured her knee and she purchased the additional seat for additional leg room.

If you PAY for a seat, it is not the carrier's business what you do with it, even if it's for your imaginary friend.

The person who grabbed her extra seat was flying STANDBY.

 

[gravityrules]

www.swamedia.com/releases/release-66ab759a702a76e0bcb37c45465c6a58-southwest-airlines-launches-enhancements-to-transform-customer-experience-and-improve-financial-performance

Here is the official PR

 

[rickandcindy23]

She is going to push discrimination under ADA. She had a car accident which had injured her knee and she purchased the additional seat for additional leg room.

If you PAY for a seat, it is not the carrier's business what you do with it, even if it's for your imaginary friend.

The person who grabbed her extra seat was flying STANDBY.

She should have been able to keep her seat. Rick and I would love to fly SW to the islands, but only if they let us buy a third seat for our personal comfort, and why wouldn't they do that? Sitting with someone that close for 5.5-six hours from the coast wouldn't be my ideal.

 

[Ken555]

They’re also adding red eye flights.

I’m now waiting for their announcement re charging for bags.

 

[dioxide45]

She is going to push discrimination under ADA. She had a car accident which had injured her knee and she purchased the additional seat for additional leg room.

If you PAY for a seat, it is not the carrier's business what you do with it, even if it's for your imaginary friend.

The person who grabbed her extra seat was flying STANDBY.

I don't think there is a requirement under ADA to sell a second seat to a passenger because of a bum knee. Each airline seems to have a different policy for this. Some will allow you to purchase an extra seat for personal comfort, others won't. Given Southwest's boarding process I can see why they don't do this. To them an empty seat is an open seat. There is no way to show you have it reserved unless you buy an extra seat under their Customer of Size policy. The question is, did she have both boarding passes scanned when she boarded the plane? I am thinking not because the second pass wouldn't have scanned.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I hope I get to use all of my points and my travel credits before Southwest goes nuts with additional fees.

I have considered the United card with lounge access but keep reading the fees and conditions and figure I will think about it later on. Credit card fees are getting me down. Some I can get back with the perks. Others are turning out to be wasteful.

 

[Luanne]

I hope I get to use all of my points and my travel credits before Southwest goes nuts with additional fees.

I have considered the United card with lounge access but keep reading the fees and conditions and figure I will think about it later on. Credit card fees are getting me down. Some I can get back with the perks. Others are turning out to be wasteful.

I really was hoping SW wouldn't make the change. My daughter is all for it though. I wonder if credit card holders will get some new perk since the one we have now (upgrade free to the first15 boarding positions) will go away.

A few trips back my daughter and I were trying to use our one time passes to get into the United lounge in Denver. They weren't taking passes at that time (lounge too full) but they had someone out front offering up the credit card that included lounge access. I think it's something like $800/year. No thanks. I don't travel nearly enough to make that worthwhile.

Update: It looks like the United card fee is $525/year, but I could have sworn she said $800.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I really was hoping SW wouldn't make the change. My daughter is all for it though. I wonder if credit card holders will get some new perk since the one we have now (upgrade free to the first15 boarding positions) will go away.

A few trips back my daughter and I were trying to use our one time passes to get into the United lounge in Denver. They weren't taking passes at that time (lounge too full) but they had someone out front offering up the credit card that included lounge access. I think it's something like $800/year. No thanks. I don't travel nearly enough to make that worthwhile.

Update: It looks like the United card fee is $525/year, but I could have sworn she said $800.

Yeah, that is the one we kind of wanted to get. But we would have to get TWO cards for both of us to get in.

 

[Luanne]

Yeah, that is the one we kind of wanted to get. But we would have to get TWO cards for both of us to get in.

Are you sure? It looks like a Club member can bring a guest in. I think you would only need two cards if you travel separately.

"United Club members may bring one adult and dependent children under 21, or up to two guests, into any United Club location. Members must accompany their family and guests during their United Club visit. Members are responsible for ensuring guests and family members comply with these Rules."

 

[emeryjre]

What boomers would tolerate as 40 year olds has changed
What younger generations will tolerate has changed
I can book a discount flight on Spirt, Allegiant or Frontier and pay for a seat assignment
Southwest is changing its' business plan to change with the times

There has been no mention of a change in the fee structure for checked bags
Hopefully they have will have enough computing power to handle the changes
Nobody really wants to spend big money on computer upgrades with the software/hardware coming with AI

 

[rickandcindy23]

Are you sure? It looks like a Club member can bring a guest in. I think you would only need two cards if you travel separately.

"United Club members may bring one adult and dependent children under 21, or up to two guests, into any United Club location. Members must accompany their family and guests during their United Club visit. Members are responsible for ensuring guests and family members comply with these Rules."

I was just reviewing the terms and saw that.

Our son is in fire protection at the airport, and he thinks I am over-thinking the loss of the priority pass lounges at DEN. He said I should just figure out another way to get lounge access, so United is one idea, another is Capital One Venture X . Whatever we do, one of of our high-fee credit cards need to be cancelled to even consider the United or the Capital One Venture X. There is a Capital One lounge at DEN, and it's nice enough. If I was a drinker, I could get more value from it. The generic soda machine with no brand names has vanilla cream soda with 0 calories. It's pretty good. We have two free lounge visits with our regular Cap One venture card (not the X).

We have two SW credit cards. Maybe I should cancel those.

 

[Luanne]

I was just reviewing the terms and saw that.

Our son is in fire protection at the airport, and he thinks I am over-thinking the loss of the priority pass lounges at DEN. He said I should just figure out another way to get lounge access, so United is one idea, another is Capital One Venture X . Whatever we do, one of of our high-fee credit cards need to be cancelled to even consider the United or the Capital One Venture X. There is a Capital One lounge at DEN, and it's nice enough. If I was a drinker, I could get more value from it. The generic soda machine with no brand names has vanilla cream soda with 0 calories. It's pretty good. We have two free lounge visits with our regular Cap One venture card (not the X).

We have two SW credit cards. Maybe I should cancel those.

The United lounges at Denver are quite nice. The one in terminal A is brand new and the one in B has been recently update (according to my daughter). Food choices have been good. The only problem is that they do get crowded, but members are always allowed in. If we haven't been able to get in using our one time passes, we just find a restaurant, eat there, then hang out in the gate area.

 

[rickandcindy23]

BTW, extra legroom would be nice for Rick, but I don't need it. So we pay for two premium seats for Rick to have more legroom?

 

[dioxide45]

I don't see the value of lounges in your home airport. I don't show up super early to hang out in a lounge. Lounges are best, IMO, for long layovers. I certainly wouldn't pay money or fees just to get lounge access in an airport that I fly out or back into of most often.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

Whatever. We flew SW for the 1st time in a long long time last winter. Got to the gate and had completely forgotten there were no assigned seats. I did have this pinging in my head saying "Something seems to be missing." Saw the stantions with the #s on them and wondered "what are those?" When people started lining up I figured it out, maybe 6th from last in the whole plane who did. End of story: it worked fine. No problems on our flight. I'm perfectly willing to complain about airlines, but that worked fine.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

Hopefully they have will have enough computing power to handle the changes

are they that bad? This makes me more unsure about flying them again than almost anything else could.
since I flew on SW last winter seems like I get their CC offers at least 1x / wk and their sales offers almost that often. Having an assortment of CCs is a mirage of a benefit so til i'm ready to cancel one, won't add SW