That’s exactly how I picked my seats on a Continental flight I took in July. It couldn’t have been simpler.
Hyperbole, dear boy.
With Ryanair you have to watch where you are doing that priority boarding. We paid extra for priority flying from East Mids to Budapest (because the friend travelling with us wanted a particular seat and if she didn’t get it, the sulking would be tremendous). It worked fine, they took the priority boarders out to the bus, drove us to the plane and we got on first - friend got her preferred seat and all was well.
Flying from Budapest back to East Mids was a different story. Priority boarding there actually means “priority getting on the bus” which is exactly what they did. They let us on the bus first, kept both buses outside the gate until they’d loaded everyone from the entire flight on, and then dumped us all by the plane. No priority there at all.
Since then, they have stopped flying that route and I have stopped using them. My current favourite airline is Jet2 from Manchester, you have to pay about £5 per journey to pick your seat but you know from the start which seat you’ve got. They are slightly more expensive than the other ‘cheap’ airlines but I prefer their service to both ryanair and easyjet.
In (Post-)Soviet Russia, it’s literal - not for boarding but for getting off. No, this is not a Yakov Smirnoff joke. I read a description of debarking at Sheremetyevo Int’l Airport in Moscow in The Economist a few years ago and it really stuck with me (particularly the highlighted phrases). My Google-fu turned this summary of it up in a digest service:
I can just imagine passengers, including “babushkas”, doing calf stetches and knee bends while taxing.
And that’s the same airline as complained about in the OP. Curiouser and curiouser…
I think the problem is with nearly fully booked flights (where you only have scattered isolated seats to choose from), such as you get around a long weekend. Combine that with several groups that include young children, and you have a problem.
I’ve flown into Sheremetyevo many times. I’m going again in October in fact. The above is an exaggeration. Which isn’t to say queue times of 60 - 90 minutes are unheard of.
You don’t have to worry about the Russian though, Russian nationals have a seperate queue to arriving foreigners.
And who was the idiot that thought charging for CHECKED bags was a good idea? For the love of Pete, anyone with half a brain cell would know charging for a carry-on would make more sense.
I recently booked a flight on American for my annual Christmas trip to Chicago. In order to get the cheapest possible fare and still travel at convenient times, I’m flying up on Wednesday the 22nd and returning on Tuesday the 28th. When I got to the part where I had the chance to opt for a different seat than the one I was automatically assigned I checked the available seats and even though I was flying Economy most of the seats, with the exception of the exit rows and a few designated for handicapped passengers, were still available. So I picked my preferred seat and continued on.
I was also offered the opportunity to pay extra for their “Boarding and Flexibility Package”, which would put me in the first boarding group, give me the opportunity to be put on standby for an earlier flight, and allow my to change my flight at a discount. Since I had already selected a seat at the back of the plane, which from past experience with American would put me in the first boarding group anyway, and I wasn’t planning on trying to get on an earlier flight or change my travel plans, I decided not to spend the money.
Just another person checking in to say that my family of 4 recently flew cross-country and back on Southwest, and the experience could not have been better.
We connected in Denver on the westbound trip, and Chicago Midway on the way back. All flights took off on time and arrived early. Even though all flights were pretty full, boarding was organized and fast.
Admittedly I don’t fly all that often, but it usually works out to one or two round trips a year for various reasons; so maybe it’s just the luck of the draw, but I’ve never had one of these experiences. For example, I flew Westjet to Winnipeg and back last month; the extent of the seat issue was being asked when I checked in whether I preferred an aisle or window seat, and being issued a boarding pass, and sitting in the seat I was assigned, the end. The same procedure was used when I flew to Vancouver last November on Air Canada, and Halifax a few months before that.
The one weird thing I can think of was on my Air Canada flight to Frankfurt earlier that year; we all sort of had to cluster around the check-in counter and wait to be called for some reason, and that was kind of strange and unnerving, but everything worked the way it was supposed to and there was no trouble when we actually got on the plane.
I can’t remember the last time I suffered a delay longer than about twenty minutes, and I think the last time I suffered a significant change in my air travel plans was when I was flying back from my grandfather’s funeral in Palm Springs, and that was because a generator exploded and deactivated the whole airport. (They finally put me, at their expense, in a taxi all the way to LAX. It was pretty remarkable.)
Touch wood.
Back when Southwest had only the ABC split, it got kind of messy, but now with the numbers it is perfect. I paid for the advanced boarding the last flight I took with them because I was going to be at my daughter’s graduation 24 hours before the flight. They basically automatically assign you an early number. Seatwise it was not much different from getting the number yourself 24 hours in advance.
Notice how Southwest is the only airline that actually advertises for the ordinary passenger anymore? The rest don’t even pretend that flying isn’t a hell, and advertise for first class customers and elites.
BTW, I was on a SW flight from Austin to El Paso to LA to Oakland. I saw how they turned around the plane at each of the stops - it was awesome. On time too.
It used to depend strongly on how you were getting booked. I used to fly United for work, and never had a problem getting seats in advance. Once in a while I flew it for the gummint, and had to go through their travel service. Never got seats, and when I did they were smack in the middle of a row. (You’d think they’d be able to negotiate for better treatment, but I guess they felt they couldn’t oppress the poor old airlines.) It is amazing how the seats open up when you or your company has clout.
A couple years ago, my family flewAmerican Airlines to Florida for a vacation. We booked our flight in February for a late June flight.
On the Return flight, we sat in the Orlando terminal right next to our gate. Three minutes before takeoff time an announcement came over:
Due to overbooking we are asking thre people to relinquish their seats. In return they will recieve $400 in “flight miles”.
We waited so long to take off that when we reached St.Louis for the changeover to Cedar Rapids i had to do an “O.J Simpson” though the airport carrying all our carry on luggage to get to the other gate and beg them not to leave before the rest of my family caught up.
We were so late, our checked luggage did not make the Cedar Rapids flight. WE got it Three days after we got home.
My question is this. Our tickets had a time stamp saying when we bought it. Why didn’t they just say the last three people to buy tickets had to wait, instead of wasting half an hour looking for voulanteers?
I just wanted to say that the second word in the thread title is completely superfluous.
The last three tickets were probably bought by business people, who paid the highest price for booking at the last minute, and have zillions of frequent-flier miles. Do you really want to piss that kind of customer off?
Does anyone really think that bags have ever flown for free? Baggage handlers do not work for the airline for zero pay.
There is a cost associated and the airline uses the revenue they take in to pay that expense. When you fly Southwest you pay a fare for your ticket. If you have a carry-on bag and don’t check any bags, why pay for an amenity that you are not using.
I really think a tiered fare basis like Frontier airlines offers is the fairest way. Base tier, you get a seat and an advance seat assignment and pay to check bags. Next tier up for $10 to $25 more, you get 2 checked bags no charge, complementary inflight entertainment, reduced fees. Top tier comp bags, booze, entertainment, lounge access, fully refundable ticket, bonus FF miles. This is an upsell to the lowest fare avalable at the time you book.
Pay for what you want. I don’t understand why the other airlines don’t do it.
Why? As the OP said, the families are “unable to book seats together.”
I fly anywhere from 10 to 30 flights/year with my child, and I can tell you that many airlines are indifferent to the need to put a parent next to a small child.
However, I was very happy once when United realized that the only way they could seat me and my son (then 4 or 5) together on an LAX-HNL flight was to upgrade us both to first class, and so they did. 
Oh man. The open seating is the exact reason I loathe Southwest and only fly them when I have no other reasonable choice (most often when I’m going Seattle to Nashville, a route for which no other carrier has a direct flight). Hate, hate, hate. When I am forced to fly SWA, I either pay for Business Select or at least Early Bird so I have a decent chance at a reasonable seat, and at that point I’m usually paying as much or more as I would be on a carrier I like (usually I fly Alaska or Virgin America) anyway.
I also greatly dislike that they don’t have first class. I don’t fly first class all the time (not even half the time), and I never pay full fare for it, but I like having the option available when I feel the need.
Hmmm. As I am overweight, I customarily buy two seats so I don’t get pinched and the person next to me isn’t crowded. I wonder how an airline like Southwest would handle that. I mean, I’m losing weight now, but I doubt if I’ll be svelte enough to be comfortable in one seat by Thanksgiving, and I’d like to go see my folks.