My wife, who travels only for leisure and really does not care where she sits, has never understood my frustration with the rampant abuse of the SWA preboard policy. I am happy to have found a few like-minded folks on this board. For the “you can’t see every disability” crowd, I get it. But if you think every person taking advantage of this system is truly disabled, you have not been paying attention. Unfortunately, short of pre-assigned seats (which I do not endorse), SWA’s hands are tied. Your federal government will not let them ask for proof of disability, so they don’t. Thank your congressman. This problem persists throughout our government. Rather than taking the risk that some people will be made to feel uncomfortable, we would rather just take people at their word, without any accountability. (And, as an unabashed libertarian, let me note this is just one more example of what goes wrong when we let government dictate the rules for private industry. But that’s a rant for another day.) To SWA, I encourage you to lobby for changes to the existing preboard regulations. Lobby for rules that are fair, but require accountability and allow for common sense.
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