Greetings Community Southwest:
As of the time of this writing, SoCalFlyer97 has a backlog of written posts to share on this board (e.g.: The next part of my Trains-to-Planes experience series, my latest short-haul SW flight experience from SAN-SFO and back, and my latest experience and tips of using one of Global Entry's perks). Two of these are nearly fully written and ready to be posted,...and then we all got the big news this morning on the seating policy changes.
I felt it would be best to defer the other posts until next week and keep focus on this Seating Assignment headline as all eyes are on this story. I noticed that this board is flooded with questions and comments. I felt it would be good for me to opine as I'm a frequent short-haul traveler aboard the LUV airline, an A-Lister who travels up and down the Golden State and to/from PHX and LAS regularly.
First, let's run through what we already know from the official source. Here's the link to the Press Release and all of my points will be based on this:
https://www.swamedia.com/releases/southwest-airlines-launches-enhancements-to-transform-customer-exp...
Once Southwest announced that it is moving forward with plans for assigned and premium seating, the news media ran with it. The world now knows this will be forthcoming. Also, SW announced a redesign of the boarding model and to introduce nonstop overnight flights starting with a number of routes.
We also know that Southwest announced back in April that it was doing an analysis of product preferences and expectations which included the assigned seating proposal. A reason behind all this is to strengthen their financial position so they basically don't operate in the red (pardon the pun).
Southwest released that "80% of Southwest Customers, and 86% of potential Customers, prefer an assigned seat." and "when a Customer elects to stop flying with Southwest and chooses a competitor, open seating is cited as the number one reason for the change." To be clear, I don't know as a traveler the methodology behind this polling/survey or the demographics of the participants. Some people have opined that this survey is flawed; I don't have a shred evidence to back up that claim either way. However, it would be good for the traveling public and the shareholders in my opinion to release the polling methodology but an 80% up-vote for assigned seating is a high number in my opinion to warrant action for the good of the airline.
Lastly, Southwest announced that more details will be announced during its "Investor Day" meeting in late September. Some additional details or FAQ's could show up sooner, but it appears that we as travelers will in fact have more details come later this fall. Thus, as the old cliché goes: We'll have to wait and see.
SoCalFlyer97 has experienced breaking headlines like this in the past. I've already documented my experience with my old free Washington Mutual checking account when this massive customer-focused bank failed in 2008:
https://community.southwest.com/t5/Check-In-Boarding/What-happens-to-the-free-upgraded-boarding-now/...
Back then, I had to wait as Chased implemented the changes. Right now, more details regarding this SW announcement are forthcoming and I and everybody else will need to hold patiently until the details are announced.
For the immediate term, we can still enjoy the current upgraded perks and what SW already has to offer until the changes are phased in.
Now that the facts are stated, here's SoCalFlyer97's thoughts on all this...
As an A-Lister, I don't know for sure how this will impact me.
If you follow my posts, I'm a window seat guy, and I usually pick the first available one which is almost always toward the front portion of the plane. I LUV the views from the window and take a bunch of pictures of them and share them on this board.
For most of my fights, I book well ahead of time during sales when the fare is low. Under an assigned seating program, that will likely mean I may be able to reserve a nice window seat, maybe toward the front. I don't know. Sometimes I've utilized my Same Day Flight Change and my "A61" benefit; I have no clue of how that's going to be addressed. I would assume A-Listers and ALP's will have some priority "say" on their seat selections--possibly including Same Day Flight Changes/Standby's but I'm not sure.
Also have no idea of which of SW's fares or tiers will allow for seat selection versus being simply assigned.
I'm therefore assuming that we as travelers will soon be able to see a seat map of each flight and how full it is upon booking; that would be a huge plus and remove much of the guesswork involved with figuring out how full a flight is; maybe that will be part of the tradeoff benefit for "A61" in deciding whether or not to make a same-day flight change (i.e.: if there's only middle seats left, I may decide to hang on to my original booking). Something like this on SW's booking page would be a huge plus. Here's Breeze Airway's seating map for an August mid-week flight from SBD-SFO:
I'll take that first available premium economy window seat toward the front...okay maybe not!
One thing I'll opine on and folks have already commented on this on this forum. I believe this policy change will put a dead stop to any alleged pre-boarding abuse and seat-saving problems that has been a widespread discussion topic on this board which should help protect the value of the higher fare products. That will be a good thing.
Regarding the Premium Seating feature...I have no idea how this section will fit into all this and I think this will be a phased-in change given Southwest's massive fleets (I could be wrong). I'm assuming the seating re-arrangements will be done while the new RECARO seats with in-seat power are installed in conjunction with the larger overhead bin space to minimize the need to gate-check carry-on's. How this premium section fits into A-List/ALP perks...no clue.
Regarding the boarding process and timing...the news release did mention that they are aiming for "reductions in turn-time through new technologies and procedures".
That tells me that they may have cracked the code of quickly boarding (and possibly exiting) the plane without the need for open seating which I think they'll announce later. That tells me that there's a high possibility that boarding times will stay at 30-minutes prior to departure (or even be improved to 25-minutes prior) but that's my guess for now.
Lastly, Overnight Flights...Starting next February.
Here they are:
LAS-BWI
LAS-MCO
LAX-BWI
LAX-BNA
PHX-BWI
This will be a great feature in my opinion. If they're able to roll this out systemwide in the future to include the SoCal short-haul routes, that basically provides transportation coverage during the night owl hours up and down Cali. It's worth noting that BrightLine is building a high speed rail route for the SoCal-LAS corridor which will essentially compete with SW; having additional lower cost night owl flights for this route can help assure SW remains competitive for this market. I hope SW considers Cali for Redeye real soon.
So there you have it. In summary, I don't know if this change will be a good or bad thing for my flight needs. I'm guessing it will be good but that depends on how this gets executed and what the seating reservation policies will be. As SW announces more details of how this will all integrate with A-List/ALP and Same Day Flight Change/Standby and what the "A61" tradeoff's will be, I'll provide an update.
For now travel safely and enjoy the rest of your summer. I'll be posting my other travel experiences mentioned at the top of this posting sometime next week.
