Southwest Airlines Community

I was recently on a flight that had 18 pre-boards in wheelchairs. They actually let up to five people board with the person in each wheelchair. I’ve never seen that many or as many people allowed to board with them, but as you may have guessed, it took quite a bit of time. It was also sort of miraculous that only about two of them ended up needing wheelchairs when we landed. I’m not being facetious, these were facts. I am not saying that people do not need pre-board. Some people do need to pre-board. At one time I used to pre-board when I had a blind husband and we flew with a guide dog. We needed the bulkhead so we could pre-board , however, we ended up having to pre-board after all the wheelchairs and occasionally A flight attendant would have to ask someone who had preboarded to move out of the bulkhead so that we could fit the dog in. So I do understand a legitimate need to pre-board however, I think we can all agree that there is rampant abuse in the generous pre-board policy that southwest is extending. Do I know what the answer is? No, I do not. But I would be really irritated if I paid an extra $300 and a third of the plane boarded before I did. The original poster is justified. If Southwest is going to charge exorbitant fees. They need to figure out how to get you on the plane In some kind of actual priority capacity. Or else, they shouldn’t be allowed to charge that. Also, of note, they just severely increased the early bird fee and the price to secure an A1 through 15 boarding spot a couple of days ago. So now they’re going to charge you even more yet they’ve mentioned no change in enforcement of sny policy to actually provide you with priority boarding.  ... View more