Never flown Southwest--are there really no seat ressies?

[Pinnie]

Assigned has it's *perks*......but it also has drawbacks. Assigned seating was the main reason we left ATL late on the way to Newport News (on another airline)...for the RNR 1/2 marathon. They had some volunteers give up seats, and apparently the gate agent assigned ALL the replacements to one set of seats instead of spreading them out on the flight to the empty seats.

By the time they got that straightened out........there was a friggin' CONGO LINE of Delta Jets in front of us for take-off.....and it took well over an hour to get to the end of the runway for our flight.

Had it been open seating.....I'm sure we would have left on time.......ahead of the Delta Flight bank..........and out of ATL before it got crazy.


That is one reason I really like the unassigned seating that SWA offers.....

I have seen, however, on a few occasions (esp out of MCO) that there are so many families that they forego preboarding young children and just allow handicap pre-boards.

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[chamonix]

Just to update this thread (in case any of ya'll were worried about me, LOL) everything went great. We arrived in Nashville about 1 and a half to 2 hours early and got A's. Noone lined up at all (apparently we were all A's, there were less than 30 folks on the flight). We were first on the plane and took second row seats--the first row, being bulkhead has no tray tables in front. Also, no underseat storage since there are no seats infront of you. We never use overhead bins, I prefer to use the underseat storage. Returning from MCO, we got there about 2 hours early and got A's. We got in line early and got the third row I think. Kinda hard to remember, the Xanax really did it's job, LOL!! Oh, and both times we used skycaps to check in. On the return, it was a cold day,and we thought less people would be willing to stand in line outside to check in, and we were right! There was a delay for take-off, the plane we were supposed to take from MCO was stuck on the ground in Rhode Island or somewhere with the big winter storm out East. They "found" us another plane though, and we were off about an hour late. I was very impressed with SWA and would defintitely fly them again, but plan to get there early and line up.
Anyway, thanks for all the information!!

 

[Pinnie]

Glad to hear it all worked out for you and you had a good experience with SWA. I am flying NWA tomorrow to MCO and SWA again on a Rapid Reward ticket in Feb.

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[jimmytammy]

We just flew SWA roundtrip from RDU to MCO and back. It is the 1st time we have flown SWA. They were great! Actually the no ticket deal is better. If you have a child 5 or under or someone handicapped, you get first seating. Next they seat by A, then B then C. A passengers are those who arrived at airport earliest and so on. It is less hassle than other airlines. I was skeptical also til now.

 

[safetymom]

The reason people line up early, and others are bothered by it, is the fear of "line crashing". By this I mean people on airlines with reserved seating who board before their row is called.

Living in a hub city for USAirways I see this all the time. US is very good at telling people that they aren't boarding their rows yet.

I have seen preferred flyers practically run down the elderly so they can board before them.

Courtesy seems to go out the window at boarding time. Then there is my other pet peeve when I watch those boarding with all their worldly possessions. Whatever happened to the carry on limit being enforced?

 

[monarchsfan16]

my 12 year old sis and i flew from nh to seattle on swa in august and it was an excellent experience...the fa's were all VERY helpful and friendly...questions were answered professionally without them treating us badly because we were two kids flying alone...we got into our connection city early (even after leaving manchester late) which gave us extra time....being at the end of the b line to board the second flight meant that we were pretty far back in the plane in order to find two seats together...but otherwise there were no problems, and once again we landed early...a first for anyone in my family since usually we're being put on other flights because of missed connections (new england weather is not easy to deal with for flying)...the jokes and singing made the flights interesting, and the fa's turned the safety speech into comedy acts...swa is definitely a great airline

 

[chamonix]

OK, I know I was on a heavy dose of xanax, but "singing"and "jokes"--? I don't remember any of that. Come to think of it, I don't remember much of the safety stuff either though, LOL. If the plane goes down, dh will have to drag me out, apparently. I will still be flying.