Brian Lusk & Everyone-
Let me respectfully offer some advice.
You have a 'communication' disaster brewing.
The headline re: family board is:
"Southwest gets rid of family pre-boarding."
NOT
"Southwest move family boarding after the first 60 passengers where those passengers will most likely have no problem sitting together"
That leaves most people to picture boarding at the end of the C group with a 2 year old. IE- no more SWA.
Your customers with little ones flat out WONT "try that out to see if they like it." The will rightfully conclude that is a silly risk to take.
Your BIG problem is "the real story" is too complicated. The story that is spreading virally, in the mommy-n-me classes, at work and in the park, is the headline "Southwest ends family preboard."
For the .0001% that read the blog and or find a newspaper that gave the whole story, they might try it
A significant portion of the other .9999% won't give you the chance (because they only know the headline)
Is it really worth it??
Steve
Sky King JR- GREAT post.
((and I STILL don't see how this possibly speeds things up))
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The reason I fly SWA is family pre-boarding. Southwest is the ONLY airline that guarantees my family will sit together. As others have mentioned it works the other way also. Before I had children I would be sure to sit far away from infants and small children.
What happens if I get on the plane and I cannot sit my family together? Do I decide which two strangers to sit my 5 year old between? Maybe I could put my 3 year old with dead-heading crew, along with her sippy cup and some Cherrios.
Or, and this will REALLY speed things up, I can spend 20 minutes negotiating seat moves with 5 different people. Of course I will have to permute the possibilities with the 3 other families doing the same thing. I assume Southwest will provide me a whiteboard, handheld computer and flak jacket to assist in this process.
I DO fly Southwest and I WILL be forced to fly it less if I cannot guarantee my kids won't **EVER** have to sit with strangers. That isn't a threat it is a fact (for anyone I assume).
On top of all this we still have to get on the plane, so where does the time savings come from???
DUMB IDEA Southwest.
Now where's that Mileage Plus card....
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