Another SW boarding question

[DonaldnDaisy5]

Traveling tomorrow! Leaving Detroit metro at 9 with 6 tickets all high A boarding positions. We have a connecting flight with a VERY short layover in Missouri. We do switch planes. For this portion all 6 got lower B boarding positions (10 to 16 i think).

Decent chances of sitting together for both sections?

Also anyone with experience in St Louis airport? Will we have time to hit bathrooms as long as flight is on time? We land at 930 and board again at 10!

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

Its pretty much definite that you'll sit together on the first flight.

You say land at 9:30am and board at 10am so I should assume your flight takes off at 10:30ish?
Or is the flight departing at 10am? If that is the case you will likely not have time to go to the bathroom and the boarding process will likely have begun around the time you land from your first flight so you may not be very lucky in finding seats together.

 

[DonaldnDaisy5]

The second flight departs at 1030, we are scheduled to arrive at 930. I am assuming the gates will be close and boarding starts at 10. So 1/2 hour wiggle room to get to gate. I already told group no one is doing anything until we find our gate!!!

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

The second flight departs at 1030, we are scheduled to arrive at 930. I am assuming the gates will be close and boarding starts at 10. So 1/2 hour wiggle room to get to gate. I already told group no one is doing anything until we find our gate!!!

In that case you'll likely have time to hit the bathroom.
And with those boarding positions you'll also be likely to sit together on that second flight.

 

[PatMcDuck]

Unless the 2nd flight has a bunch of people on it already who are going forward to next destination.

We got on a return flight to PHL once, in North Carolina. We had pretty low A tickets, in the 20s and there were no really low number passengers. Only a small handful of people exited the plane in NC (it originated in Orlando). We boarded and the plane was packed.... only empty middle seats that had people's stuff loaded onto it. People had spread out once the 20 or so people exited in NC and got comfortable. It was annoying to have to ask people, all avoiding eye contact, to move their stuff so we could sit down. I went to a middle seat and surprise, the window and aisle people were actually together, so one shifted back to the middle seat. Same happened to my (adult) daughter in the row she chose for her middle seat. So we both ended up with aisle seats, short flight, no problem.

We laugh about it now, how our low A's were not that helpful! (we did not pay for the early boarding thing).

 

[barbliny]

You should be able to use Flight Aware and look up your connecting flight number and see where it is coming from. Some SW flights have high numbers of fly-through passengers (kind of likely on a Florida flight) and there may be a lot of people already on the plane when you start boarding. I would not count on all 6 of you sitting together.

DD and her friend just had a connecting SW flight last week - B15 and B16 - they had to go to the last row in the plane to get 2 seats together.

You can also see how tight your connection might be through Flight Aware - you can look up your outgoing flight and you can see the statistics about on-time performance - which might help you judge if your 'bathroom window' might be shortened!

 

[NotUrsula]

We have 20 SWA gates here at STL (they have the entire concourse), but the full length of the concourse is only about 1/4 mile. Most of the time the Orlando flights leave out of gates in the 10-15 range, which is near the center of the concourse. Bathrooms are not going to be an issue as long as the flight is on time. If you need to grab a bite to eat there are several take-out options near those gates, including a Burger King and a CPK.

If you tell me your flight number I can probably tell you what the likelihood of a lot of through passengers is. I fly from STL to MCO on SWA quite often. I will say that you are pretty unlikely to find 6 contiguous open seats on a connecting flight, unless you have a young child in the party and/or folks who are eligible for blue-sleeve preboarding. IME, pairs are pretty easy to find with a low B.

 

[FCDub]

I've found people LOVE buying EBCI in St. Louis for some reason ... probably more than any other airport I regularly fly through.

 

[tinkerbellandeeyor]

I've found people LOVE buying EBCI in St. Louis for some reason ... probably more than any other airport I regularly fly through.

I would think MCO would be more popular given most want to sit with there kids

 

[NotUrsula]

I honestly don't find that EBCI is all that popular here EXCEPT on the MCO flights. Your odds of getting A's more than 3 minutes after T-24 are much better on a flight to somewhere like Chicago or Phoenix. These days it *is* difficult to get anything lower than a middle B on an MCO flight if you don't buy it.

I didn't realize at first that the OP had mentioned her flight time. That late-AM non-stop from here to MCO is what we call the kiddie-flight; we generally try to avoid it because it has more young families on board than any other flight time on the route, mostly because it doesn't overlap nap-time, so it's a favorite with people taking babies along. (We have two earlier flights to choose from, and usually do if we can fly in the AM.) Since you were able to check in for this flight more than 24 hours out, everyone who is ahead of you is either a Business Select, A-List, or EBCI. The flight is completely sold-out for tomorrow, so there probably are a number of connecting passengers, and most of them are going to be larger parties with children, too.

For the OP, please be sure that if you only have two adults in the group, please be sure that your older children have their own entertainment and snacks in bags that they are carrying on their own, so that if they are seated away from you they can manage. Best of luck.

 

[DonaldnDaisy5]

Welp, it worked, we did get 6 seats across from one another even with our Bs and the kiddie flight! Totally see what you mean. We were about to check in earlier than the Missouri leg but another flight from some where else must have been able to check in before us.

Only 4 families loaded during family boarding. And only one of those 4 looked to be pushing the 6 year old cut off. However I thought only one adult could board at that time with the child...not that it mattered for us but I thought it was interesting.

Thanks for the replies and help!!!

 

[Gentry2004]

I would think MCO would be more popular given most want to sit with there kids

People with young kids automatically get Family Boarding and they don't have to pay extra for it. But in that vain, the Family Boarding line at MCO is always long, as is the Family Boarding line at my home airport on flights headed to MCO.

 

[scrapquitler]

People with young kids automatically get Family Boarding and they don't have to pay extra for it. But in that vain, the Family Boarding line at MCO is always long, as is the Family Boarding line at my home airport on flights headed to MCO.

Be aware that sometimes SW skips the family boarding between the A group and the B group, especially on flights where there is an overwhelming number of small children.

 

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

Be aware that sometimes SW skips the family boarding between the A group and the B group, especially on flights where there is an overwhelming number of small children.

But, families with small kids don't skip the middle seat, as they want to sit next to them. This results in people with higher boarding numbers finding seats together than they would if the plane was filled with business travelers, who often skip the middle seats.

 

[Jillpie]

Be aware that sometimes SW skips the family boarding between the A group and the B group, especially on flights where there is an overwhelming number of small children.

I noticed that on our last flight! We were in the A group, and the families with kids didn't pre board, I didn't understand that, do you know why?

 

[DebbieB]

QUOTE="DonaldnDaisy5, post: 57994025, member: 422378"]Welp, it worked, we did get 6 seats across from one another even with our Bs and the kiddie flight! Totally see what you mean. We were about to check in earlier than the Missouri leg but another flight from some where else must have been able to check in before us.

Only 4 families loaded during family boarding. And only one of those 4 looked to be pushing the 6 year old cut off. However I thought only one adult could board at that time with the child...not that it mattered for us but I thought it was interesting.

Thanks for the replies and help!!![/QUOTE]

I've never seen them enforce 1 adult/1 child. It's always been the entire family. I've also seen instances were families boarding did not have a kid that looked 6 or under. One time I saw a family jump in at the end of family boarding with 2 kids that looked 8 or 10.

I noticed that on our last flight! We were in the A group, and the families with kids didn't pre board, I didn't understand that, do you know why?

Families with kids do not pre-board, they board between A and B. If you were in A group, they were after you.

 

[Jillpie]

QUOTE="DonaldnDaisy5, post: 57994025, member: 422378"]Welp, it worked, we did get 6 seats across from one another even with our Bs and the kiddie flight! Totally see what you mean. We were about to check in earlier than the Missouri leg but another flight from some where else must have been able to check in before us.

Only 4 families loaded during family boarding. And only one of those 4 looked to be pushing the 6 year old cut off. However I thought only one adult could board at that time with the child...not that it mattered for us but I thought it was interesting.

Thanks for the replies and help!!!

I've never seen them enforce 1 adult/1 child. It's always been the entire family. I've also seen instances were families boarding did not have a kid that looked 6 or under. One time I saw a family jump in at the end of family boarding with 2 kids that looked 8 or 10.



Families with kids do not pre-board, they board between A and B. If you were in A group, they were after you.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I know they board between A and B, but my question is, why? Wouldn't it make more sense to let the little kids get settled first?

 

[DebbieB]

Yes, I know they board between A and B, but my question is, why? Wouldn't it make more sense to let the little kids get settled first?

They used to pre-board families but when they started selling the early bird, it went to between A and B. My guess is it would be hard to sell if families got on first free. In a way I liked it the old way because families would be in the front and I could go to the back where it was more quiet. Now everyone spreads out more.