I know I'm swimming upstream, but PLEASE consider modifying your seating system. Surely some accomodation can be made to appease those who think it is fun to arrive 2 hours early to find all 3 lines? jammed with campers/picnikers sitting, lying, slouched on the floor all over the area, usually in groups of 3 or more in a circle, with their food & drink (the empty wrappers/cups usually left for someone else to pick up), looking for all the world like a refugee camp.
Whenever possible I check in online, but not always getting an A pass, and unable to sit with, or even close to my wife, that being somewhat of an inconvenience since we try to limit ourselves to 1 carry-on for both of us, and besides, we sort of like each other's company on a long flight.
Return flights are another matter. On a recent trip, we had debarked a ship in Vancouver, transferred to Seattle by bus to catch our Southwest flight to Austin. Not having access to a computer, we had to endure the manual check in process. We nonetheless arrived at the gate an hour early, only to find a literal horde of folks amassed there. No semblance of lines (see above). We had been anxious about the new security procedures creating long lines at check-in and security. Those concerns proved to be groundless. The unpleasantness awaited us at the gate where the flight was late. With no assigned seats, one doesn't dare leave the gate area to have a meal, shop etc. Must stay at the gate to preserve one's place among the still gathering hordes, the numbers of which convinced me that the flight would surely be over-booked (it wasn't).
In closing, we got a seat (not together) and arrived home ok. But the experience, commonplace today, has given us cause to question whether the pluses of flying SWA are worth the aggravation.
I have flown with you since the early seventies, twenty of those years for business and pleasure, the last sixteen for pleasure only. So I know what
FUN flying is about. Champagne flights, your own hostesses in hotpants, seats wide enough to fit all but the most enormous butts; those days are gone, economics and efficiency control now. SWA is a great business model. I accept that reality, but is the "cattle car" the only alternative? I hope not.
So, unless and until you can find some way to accomodate folks like us who are willing to pay extra for an assigned seat ( I don't care whether it is front/back, window/aisle/middle/emergency, first/last group, wherever), we will be looking at other airlines in future.
H.D.
... View more
