All in all, I don't mind Southwest's open seating policy - but I certainly don't consider it an attractive feature of the airline. If the
company wants to stick with this policy, I think it could be implemented a little better. I would like to suggest that you consider
using more seating groups (say 5 or 6) with smaller numbers of passengers. With only 3 boarding groups, passengers are
motivated to line up long before they begin boarding so they can be at the front of a particular boarding group. This is
especially true if boarding passengers expect a lot of carry-over passengers from the previous leg. I find it very annoying to stand in line at the airport gate for an hour for a good seat on a flight that is likely to last only an hour itself. Often times I don't bother joining
the mob and just wander on the plane at the back of my boarding group for these flights ... but I do it wondering if I should have
just saved myself the headache and booked a flight with an assigned seat. The policy also adds a bit of stress to traveling
families with young children (but who are too old to preboard) who want to stick together. Fortunately, my children are still
under the preboard age limit, but I've seen flight attendants working "deals" with passengers so that they can get other
families to sit together (or close to each other). When traveling with small children, I don't need one more (uncessessary) thing
to worry about.
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