Post all SW questions concerns, etc. here...

[focusondisney]

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/25/southwest-airlines-seat-assignments.html

Assigned seating & extra legroom coming next year!

 

[dobball23]

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/25/southwest-airlines-seat-assignments.html

Assigned seating & extra legroom coming next year!

I figured this was coming, but I'm not excited about it. I think they will need to make up the lost revenue from EBCI and the extra legroom seats won't be enough. Thoughts?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yeah...this will drop SWA from being our preferred airline, burn through miles we have stored up and reconsider. One of the things I really hate about other airlines is paying for assigned seating and then worrying about someone sitting it in.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My personal opinion is this investor has the potential to run SWA to the ground effectively bankrupting it eventually

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think they will need to make up the lost revenue from EBCI and the extra legroom seats won't be enough. Thoughts?

One of the things I'm thinking about is that SWA has the lion's share of the market at my home airport but this shift will make them like Delta who has over the years been more competitive on pricing and is second (or third depending on the year with AA) on the market share. I don't think it'll knock SWA out but I'm pondering that people will start more and more to make different decisions on the airline. On the other hand this most recent IT outage where now Delta is under hot water like SWA was a few years back may stick around in people's minds for a bit.

 

[LadybugsMum]

I'm not sad about the end of open seating as I find myself using Delta more and more so I can pick seats together and it's been cheaper than SW.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm not sad about the end of open seating as I find myself using Delta more and more so I can pick seats together and it's been cheaper than SW.

But in that case the assigned seating adjustment wouldn't likely have you switching back to SWA because it would cost you more than you are with Delta unless a schedule of SWA is more desirable.

 

[LadybugsMum]

But in that case the assigned seating adjustment wouldn't likely have you switching back to SWA because it would cost you more than you are with Delta unless a schedule of SWA is more desirable.

I will still need to use SW for other itineraries as I have family all over the US. I just use them less and less for the flights to MCO. As a single parent, it's very important to me that we all sit together since I don't have the option of splitting up my kids with another adult.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I will still need to use SW for other itineraries as I have family all over the US. I just use them less and less for the flights to MCO. As a single parent, it's very important to me that we all sit together since I don't have the option of splitting up my kids with another adult.

Totally get it I'm just saying as a general and then specific to your comment point. If you were turned away from SWA due to price and lack of assigned seating them adding assigned seating isn't going to lure people if you're getting a flight for less elsewhere (per your words). So yes you may use them here and there when it is better suited due to flight route not necessarily because of the change they announced (as the primary reason).

 

[TinkAgainU]

Huh- Mine have always shown the price difference when I changed them on my own- for a route change,I believe there is no fare change for that,so if you choose pricier route,or a cheaper route it's the same.....

Correct. BUT if you are getting pushed by their flight cancellation to a new fight it does NOT show the price or points difference so if you picked a pricier flight, that's fine. In my case all the flights that made any sense to switch to were a LOT cheaper if I checked their prices on another page (like booking a new flight) so that's when I noticed the 15,000 point difference which I wanted put Back in my account - especially since the new flight times were not as good as what I'd booked. Just had to call to sort it out (could not cancel and rebook or I'd lose what I prepaid for Early Bird). It's helpful to know what your Old $/points per flight were Also, as someone pointed out, they frequently do NOT put you in a comparable flight, you really have to go check for yourself. They rebooked me on truly awful flights (so bad I was going to cancel my WDW trip altogether) when there were (somewhat) comparable flights available.

 

[Wood Nymph]

There are people who never flew SWA because of their open seating policy. There are people like me who almost always flew SWA because of the pricing and free luggage. Some of us will continue to use SWA because it is the major carrier at their airport. Chicago-Midway is an example.

Bottom line - I think this will level the playing field with other carriers. I am thrilled that they are dropping the unassigned seating. I personally found the increase in pre-boarders to be a negative.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I personally found the increase in pre-boarders to be a negative.

That was the probably the most salient issue that frequent fliers/loyalty people to SWA were getting frustrated on over the last several years. But I did think it was interesting hearing the quote from JetBlue's CEO (I think that's who it was) saying that the issue with SWA was customers weren't willing to fight for seats....guess we'll see how that goes because people will be doing this now to an extent and you will probably experience more requests from other passengers to switch seats for one reason or another (something I only experienced from other carriers).

 

[LoveToDisney]

I hope SWA keeps its Customer of Size policy. I always hated being “sat upon” by a heavy person when they took the middle seat. The COS policy gives everyone an easy way to make sure an extra seat is reserved for those that need it.

 

[EACarlson]

I didn't choose SW because of open seating or stay away from them because of it. They offer me the closest non-stop from my house, so I used them. I will do the same as I did before, but without having to worry about boarding groups or EBCI. Less likely I'll get the infinite legroom seats but doubtful I'll have an issue getting my preferred window seat as I book far in advance. Only thing that's going to worry me is schedule changes closer in.

 

[disneylover81]

There are people who never flew SWA because of their open seating policy. There are people like me who almost always flew SWA because of the pricing and free luggage. Some of us will continue to use SWA because it is the major carrier at their airport. Chicago-Midway is an example.

Bottom line - I think this will level the playing field with other carriers. I am thrilled that they are dropping the unassigned seating. I personally found the increase in pre-boarders to be a negative.

We have always only flown SWA, our home airport is Memphis. I love the open seat policy, but I have found myself over the last few years buying BS and Anytime tickets mainly because of the out of control pre-boarding situation. We like to sit up close to the front on the plane and it was getting to where we'd have to sit on row 10 because of it. Sometimes even with being given an A boarding group, we have upgraded our tickets to A1-A15 at the 24 hour mark if I thought we needed to. I have missed the days when we could just buy WGA with EBCI on release day and still be in the A group with no worries. Every time we fly and SWA sends me an email about our flight experience, I ALWAYS complain about pre-boarding. I am happy about the new assigned seating changes and I don't see it affecting me too much, since I already spend extra for the BS/Anytime tickets as it is.

 

[dez1978]

But in that case the assigned seating adjustment wouldn't likely have you switching back to SWA because it would cost you more than you are with Delta unless a schedule of SWA is more desirable.

I wonder how this will work out. How much will they start charging for seat assignments? How will this affect the whole rewards/A list thing? I know we likely fly out of the same airport, but we also do STL a lot because it's closer and SW and Frontier are the only airlines that have direct flights to MCO from STL. I guess Spirit does too, but Nope on that lol

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I wonder how this will work out. How much will they start charging for seat assignments? How will this affect the whole rewards/A list thing?

It's a good question and then makes me think of more lol.

Will A-List even matter towards seat selection as in would you get any sort of preferential treatment (either reduced costs or earlier date you can select your seats if they didn't do it as part of your booking process). What about Business Select seats because those can be very pricey and now what are you going to be getting for that. Are they re-hauling the entire thing? The somewhat rumor I heard was basically turning WGA (not WGA+ but WGA) into a basic economy type fare but even if that did end up being true what happens to the Business Select and Anytime fares.


Then there's how points will be earned. Will an extra leg room seat that presumably costs more count towards tier qualifying points but not the specific charge for your selected seat? Is it baked into the cost for specific seats?

Then there's the bonus on earning that A-list gets. My husband had a rare one off glitch last week where his flight did not show as earning points so he called in and the girl was unfortunately not helpful and resubmitted it and just told him to wait which he was not confident it would work and it didn't. He called back this week and got a very helpful person who helped him out but because his flight was booked through a travel agent (because it was for work) he had to do more digging around. I guess it isn't as easy to tell what fare you booked in their system so the person had to do more work then he almost forgot his A-list bonus on points earned and had to manually calculate that. From what I understand this is not something that at all is normally the case, the system is good at doing it and to date it's the first time it has happened BUT it brings up if they start doing unbundling here will that cause issues on the whole RR program.

 

[dez1978]

It's a good question and then makes me think of more lol.

Will A-List even matter towards seat selection as in would you get any sort of preferential treatment (either reduced costs or earlier date you can select your seats if they didn't do it as part of your booking process). What about Business Select seats because those can be very pricey and now what are you going to be getting for that. Are they re-hauling the entire thing? The somewhat rumor I heard was basically turning WGA (not WGA+ but WGA) into a basic economy type fare but even if that did end up being true what happens to the Business Select and Anytime fares.


Then there's how points will be earned. Will an extra leg room seat that presumably costs more count towards tier qualifying points but not the specific charge for your selected seat? Is it baked into the cost for specific seats?

Then there's the bonus on earning that A-list gets. My husband had a rare one off glitch last week where his flight did not show as earning points so he called in and the girl was unfortunately not helpful and resubmitted it and just told him to wait which he was not confident it would work and it didn't. He called back this week and got a very helpful person who helped him out but because his flight was booked through a travel agent (because it was for work) he had to do more digging around. I guess it isn't as easy to tell what fare you booked in their system so the person had to do more work then he almost forgot his A-list bonus on points earned and had to manually calculate that. From what I understand this is not something that at all is normally the case, the system is good at doing it and to date it's the first time it has happened BUT it brings up if they start doing unbundling here will that cause issues on the whole RR program.

I'm gonna be so mad if it makes the A list thing useless, because we earned that and the CP for next year already lol

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm gonna be so mad if it makes the A list thing useless, because we earned that and the CP for next year already lol

I would totally be upset too and wouldn't blame you either!

 

[dez1978]

I would totally be upset too and wouldn't blame you either!

I get why people didn't like SW seating policy, but I loved that other than the $5 tax or whatever it is, the price you saw when picking your flight was the price you pay for the whole thing, unless you wanted ECBI. I HATE when I look at Frontier or Spirit and they say $69 flights! but by the time you pay for a seat and a bag and a carry on it's more expensive than SW. And no matter how hard I try, I will never, ever be able to travel with just a backpack lol.