I love SWA but....

[hsmamato2]

....yes...another thread about SWA...... I love them, have flown them MULTIPLE times in the past few years (thank you RR points) but I DO wish they would have an enforced,across the board set of rules sometimes...... It stands to reason that a lot of people seem to be rude,and pushy these days...so why not enforcable across the company rules?
That way,when families get in line for family boarding with a bunch of kids who are clearly all well over 4 or who decide that family boarding means the entire extended family all piling into line with Mama and baby or who purposely cut in line with a B pass on the A line or who save a bunch of desired seats and don't let others sit down....etc etc..... or who pack the entire household into massive suitcases and then spend lots of time trying to jam them into the overheads(not to mention getting them out at the end) ...if they actually had simple RULES in place, then the FA's and agents could easily point to that when asking them to cease and desist being pushy and rude to others. (yes,the rest of us)
Just my small,tiny rant about an otherwise excellent company.....

 

[leebee]

Actually, I think they have rules for all those things. It's not a question of having rules, it's a question of getting the flight attendants to enforce those rules- and only those rules- all the time. I love flying SW, and part of this is because their FAs aren't stuffy like the legacy carriers' often are, but sometimes they get a little too lax.

 

[PlutoPony]

Southwest FA's and GA's remind me of Disney CM's...... if enforcing the rules means confrontation of any sort with a guest then it's not gonna happen unless safety is involved.

 

[stepdisney]

If only there was a "LIKE" button on the DIS I would like this OP 1 million times. We are flying SWA for the first time in many years and you don't know how stressed I am about all of what you posted.

 

[izzy25]

I paid for EBCI so if there are empty seats on a plane and I want to sit there, I'm gonna sit there. Someone tries to tell me they are saving seats, too bad. Unless there is evident proof that someone is sitting there, then I don't care. I hate when people try to cheat the system and not pay for EBCI but expect to get whatever spot they choose.

 

[stepdisney]

I paid for EBCI so if there are empty seats on a plane and I want to sit there, I'm gonna sit there. Someone tries to tell me they are saving seats, too bad. Unless there is evident proof that someone is sitting there, then I don't care. I hate when people try to cheat the system and not pay for EBCI but expect to get whatever spot they choose.

I am confused. Doesn't everyone get to choose whatever seat they want as long as it is available? If you pay for EBCI doesn't that mean that you get to board early to get your seat or you get to do your check in before 24 hours? I didn't pay for EBCI but when I board the plane don't I get to choose whatever seat I want as long as it is available or can someone with EBCI come and ask me to move. Not sure what this quote means. Please help, we are flying out tomorrow and I don't want to do this wrong. We haven't taken SWA in a very, very long time so I may be wrong.

 

[Dizzyworld]

I am confused. Doesn't everyone get to choose whatever seat they want as long as it is available? If you pay for EBCI doesn't that mean that you get to board early to get your seat or you get to do your check in before 24 hours? I didn't pay for EBCI but when I board the plane don't I get to choose whatever seat I want as long as it is available or can someone with EBCI come and ask me to move. Not sure what this quote means. Please help, we are flying out tomorrow and I don't want to do this wrong. We haven't taken SWA in a very, very long time so I may be wrong.

I think what they are referring to is when, for example, a family of 4 buys only 1 EBCI and that person goes ahead and saves seats for the rest of the family who didn't buy EBCI. Then someone who did buy EBCI comes along and is told that they can't sit there because the seats are saved.

I agree about the oversized luggage too. And people who put their things in the front of the plane instead of near their seat, so if a single person or couple find seats in the front of the plane there is no place to put their things.

I wish I had more direct flights from BWI to MCO on other airlines to pick from. I feel without an ecomony carrier to go against SW, it's like take it or leave it. Hmmm....I guess it is.

 

[izzy25]

I think what they are referring to is when, for example, a family of 4 buys only 1 EBCI and that person goes ahead and saves seats for the rest of the family who didn't buy EBCI. Then someone who did buy EBCI comes along and is told that they can't sit there because the seats are saved.

Yes this is what I meant. Thanks for clarifying that for me. I'm crossing my fingers we don't experience any of those problems when we fly.

 

[DMRick]

I don't buy the EBCI because I don't care where I sit, but this question has been asked many times on the southwest boards, can I save seats and the answer is always yes, you can save seats and there are no rules against it. It was explained that some families do not get consecutive numbers so sw doesn't want to make a no seat saving rule. If you start an argument with someone saving a seat, you may be the one removed from the plane. So what may seem like cheating to you and me, isn't considered cheating to SW.

I paid for EBCI so if there are empty seats on a plane and I want to sit there, I'm gonna sit there. Someone tries to tell me they are saving seats, too bad. Unless there is evident proof that someone is sitting there, then I don't care. I hate when people try to cheat the system and not pay for EBCI but expect to get whatever spot they choose.

 

[keishashadow]

Southwest FA's and GA's remind me of Disney CM's...... if enforcing the rules means confrontation of any sort with a guest then it's not gonna happen unless safety is involved.

indeed, whether those offenders don't care or don't know the rules, the employees should be the ones 'educating' them as part of their jobs.

 

[kamik86]

For the seat saving:

Those people that are saving seats could also be doing so because they are told to. I am a frequent flyer so most of the time I get A16-20 boarding passes. I have actually been the first person to board that wasn't preboarding (although that happens less now that they sell the business A1-A15 spots) However when flying with DH he doesn't get the number with me. So I'm going to save his seat. Now he gets saved a middle seat so most of the time no one cares but occasionally two people show up and think they can take the other two seats in my row. I haven't had to go into a real confrontation on that but if I had to well... which customer would they rather annoy the one with A list preferred status which means I spend ALOT of money with them (well actually my company does but my company will buy my flight with whatever airline I pick). Or the person that takes 1 or 2 vacations a year but bought EBCI for 12 bucks

 

[danjoan14]

That's the one thing that irks me about SW. They don't assign seats. I don't understand how they say that putting a system like that in effect will raise their prices. JetBlue assigns seats without a problem and they have low airfares. IMHO, it's how SW makes money by having their customers pay for the early bird check in. Don't you think it would save time by having seat assignments instead of people hunting and pecking for available seats?

 

[goofy4tink]

A few thoughts....
This system actually allows for faster turnover. SW planes routinely spend less time at the gate than other, seat assigned, airlines.
As far as saving seats goes...I'm not sure why one person is justified in saving a seat but someone else isn't. I don't much care that you are a 'A1-15' (or A16-20!!) flyer....you get to be there because you deserve to be..that doesn't mean you get to save a seat for your spouse! What's good for one person is good for another. I have saved a seat for my dh before, I'm not saying you shouldn't. I have no issue with saving no more than two seats in a row...but no more than that. You don't get to overlap into other rows.
As far as saving seats for those that got higher boarding slots? You can all go back to the highest slot and board together. Not one single person is going to have an issue with that..it means they now get to move up a slot or two (or three or four!!).

As far as the other 'rules'? Yeah, it would be nice if SW FAs and GAs enforced the stated rules. On one flight, I actually saw a FA offer to help a passenger get a hugely oversized bag into the overhead bin!!! Seriously? That meant that there was now room for one smallish bag in that bin!!
SW needs to have rules that they are going to enforce...it would make flying so much nicer. It always irks me when I see families get up to board between the A and B groups, when it's quite obvious they don't have a child that falls into the correct age qualification.

But....there was the time I flew SW and did see FAs enforce some rules!!! I stood and watched as the medical preboards got on. There was one older couple...he had a walker, she had a cane. No issue there. BUT..when I got on board, the FA was having a 'discussion' with this couple. They had taken seats in the exit row! As I took a seat in row 3, the couple was explaining to the FA that they were more than capable of helping out in an 'emergency'. The FA politely told them that if you are a medical preboard then you aren't going to be able to help out and are not allowed to sit in an exit row...they continued to argue with her. She finally told them that if they didn't move, security would be called and they would be taken off the plane. Well, by now, most of the rows in front of the exit rows had been taken up...there were a few middle seats open. So, they had to take seats behind the exit row..not too happy about that at all.

 

[hsmamato2]

I see a lot of us who fly a lot of SWA feel similiarly Like I said, I mostly enjoy the experience, and boy, they DO have fast gate turnover....sometimes they land, empty,filla,dn take off witj=hin minutes,it's amazing.... but I still think it would smooth things more with set actual rules,and enforcement, no questions,no worries! -I think what really irked me and caught my eye was the large family of 'over age' kids who got into family boarding line AHEAD of the actual babies for this flight....

 

[izzy25]

It's one thing if your saving a seat for your spouse. Depending on circumstances, i completely understand that. What I have heard stories of is families saving entire rows of seats for other family members who are further behind in the boarding process. That I do not agree with.

 

[n2mm]

I feel the same like most of you. I seldom fly SW for all of these reasons, however, in October I did book SW from BWI (BTW, what happened to the cheap fares out of BWI?). I did pay for the early birds for the 2 of us because I strangely still want to sit next to my spouse after 25 years. I'm coming home on Jetblue into DCA. But in November I'm flying Froniter out of Dulles for the first time (nervous too about 1 flight a day). It amazed me that I could pay $3 to choose a seat from the exit row back, or $5 to choose a seat from the exit row up (except the first 3 rows reserved for $20). It was a no brainer to just pay the extra $5 for each of us to reserve our seats. WHY can't SW do that? If they did, I would go to BWI and fly them more often. I hate driving to Reagan to fly Jetblue (my favorite) only if I have time to take metro to and from Shady Grove. Dulles is a 1 hour drive, BWI is a 1 1/2 hour drive and Reagan is a 2 hour horrible drive. I miss Jetblue taking their non-stop flights to Florida out of Dulles. So I have no loyality anymore. For my next two trips, I'm flying SW to MCO, JB back to Reagan and in November, Frontier to MCO, and United back to Dulles. Crazy.....

 

[kamik86]

To the poster above that seemed to think I meant that only some of us can save seats... I never said that. I was just pointing out to others that just because someone is saving seats doesn't mean one person bought EBCI and didn't for the rest of the family.

It's one thing if your saving a seat for your spouse. Depending on circumstances, i completely understand that. What I have heard stories of is families saving entire rows of seats for other family members who are further behind in the boarding process. That I do not agree with.

Most of the time when I have seen people attempt multiple rows they end up losing the seats in other rows as someone will just sit in them and its hard to argue after they are sitting. I have also seen many times where the family of 4 sits in two rows (aisles and windows) and then the person at one of the windows scrambles to take the middle when the announcement goes that the flight is full (this I don't mind I just find funny - you could just ask the flight attendant if the flight is full on the way in and save yourself the trouble!)

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

On our flight home from MCO in December, a mom dad and two year old boarded last. I'm not sure if they were late or didn't know about family boarding but there weren't three seats together or even two seats together. Plenty of singles were open. The mom started asking people if they would switch "Excuse me sir, would you mind moving to the seat in front of you so I could have two seats together to sit with my toddler" Response: "No, I have to sit at the window". She asked about 5 people, all said no until finally one man offered to move. Her husband sat a few rows away and she sat with her toddler who was extremely well behaved for the flight. This is a prime example of when the FA should have stepped in and made an announcement overhead or helped her find someone to move. It would have been comical to see her say, fine, then I'm going to put my toddler in his car seat in that open seat next to you and you can entertain him while my husband and I have cocktails a few rows back!

 

[danjoan14]

This happened to us once on a SW flight with my wife and I not having seats together. She explained to the person next to her that she sometimes does not fly well and suffers from moton sickness which in turn can cause her to vomit. You should see how quickly the person next to her offered to change seats so we could sit together.

 

[LilyWDW]

On our flight home from MCO in December, a mom dad and two year old boarded last. I'm not sure if they were late or didn't know about family boarding but there weren't three seats together or even two seats together. Plenty of singles were open. The mom started asking people if they would switch "Excuse me sir, would you mind moving to the seat in front of you so I could have two seats together to sit with my toddler" Response: "No, I have to sit at the window". She asked about 5 people, all said no until finally one man offered to move. Her husband sat a few rows away and she sat with her toddler who was extremely well behaved for the flight. This is a prime example of when the FA should have stepped in and made an announcement overhead or helped her find someone to move. It would have been comical to see her say, fine, then I'm going to put my toddler in his car seat in that open seat next to you and you can entertain him while my husband and I have cocktails a few rows back!

Why should anyone be forced to move for someone else? I can not sit in a middle seat which is most likely all that was left at that point. Trust me, you don't want to deal with my possible panic attack in a middle seat so I would not be moving for anyone. Toddler involved or not. I do what I can do to make sure I have what I need.

And someone who just decides to be a jerk and say "I'm going to put my toddler in his car seat in that open seat next to you and you can entertain him while my husband and I have cocktails a few rows back!"? Well, okay then. Please know that the FA would be coming back and getting you every time the child needed something while I put on my headphones and 100% ignored them. People you act like that (or even suggest they should) are the ones least likely to get any help.