I can see, by the number of resposes, that Southwest will probably never go to assigned seating. I suppose it may be that the same people that find they have the time to stand and fight for a spot in the "Cattle Call" line also have time to fritter on this blog. I found it while looking for any news of Southwest changing its ways.
I fly about twice eack week, spending between $400 and $900 on plane fare in the U.S. with the bulk of my flying over the past two years on SW. I have recently dropped Southwest as an option because I am tired of standing and guarding a spot in line against, what I have seen as, increasingly obnoxious travellers who have discovered that they can bull their way into lines and otherwise disrupt what once was a fairly descent system. These folks have discovered that, in most cases, SW employees do nothing to help this situation. And why should they?
What finally did it for me was Philadelphia, where you see fit to schedule departures 30 minutes apart at the same gates, causing even more chaos than usual, given the normal occurance of flight delays there. The last straw for me was when, five minutes before loading, I had a man try to fill the one foot space between myself and the person in front of me with his bulk and when I ejected him, having to listen to his liturgy of curse words.
As for the folks writing here about it all beng worth it for the lower fares, I have news. Check again. In most cases SW is no cheaper than any other carrier. In fact, I have found that by purchasing about two weeks in advance, I have been able to get the aisle seat I prefer and am actually saving, sometimes as much as $100 over booking in the same time-frame with SW. Granted, the aisle seat I am referring to is usually futher back in the plane compared to within the first five rows I was always able to get with SW, but I have also found that it does not take even as much as an extra five minutes to de-plane. Well worth being able to grab something to eat or use the toilet just before flight time. I also much prefer the over-all relaxed boarding associated with everyone knowing well in advance where their seat will be.
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