Detest SW’s seating system. I avoid SW at all costs. Although… my next flight (booked two weeks in advance) only has middle seats available for reservation, and so now I’m thinking, I could beat the late-comers. In the end, it’s my fault for working for a company that makes me take the lowest fare instead of choosing alternate flights with better seats available (if it were my money, I’d happy pay to avoid the middle seats).
Put me as a fan of SW
It’s very “here are the rules. Here’s how to maximize the experience”
Except for as a child on American (to see my Granma before she died) I’ve flown SW, Continental, and Qantas
Qantas was the best.
Continental was the nicest? but I’m cheap.
SW has been consistently fun. Good flight attendants.
I prefer to bring my own food, anyway
On my way to San Diego, I heard a guy in line say that he had some time standard website open in a window, and hit the reserve button just far enough ahead to get his request in exactly 24 hours before.
He was one behind me. 
I think you can guarantee yourself an A by hitting it 24 hours ahead, but if you get A16 you’re lucky.
As for crowds, since you don’t have the case of frequent fliers boarding early and sitting in aisle seats, who then have to get up and step out for someone in a window, I found that SW boards faster, at least in the beginning.
I’ll choose Southwest whenever possible precisely because of it.
I’m chronically early to airports. Blame a childhood where transportation tended to leave “eh, whenever.” The boat’s looking pretty full, we still have an hour, but what the heck… let’s go! People at the opposite end of the spectrum annoy the everloving pus out of me, drifting into the gate or (worse) stampeding through security lines shouting “MY PLANE IS BOARDING!” while a bevy of attendants have to usher them along and try to herd them aboard in time. And then they spend forty-five minutes fussing with their overhead luggage.
That, and I don’t care for sitting next to infants. With Southwest’s boarding scheme, people traveling with young children invariably sit at the very front of the plane, where they can be off first. By choosing a seat near the back, I know the sounds will at least be muffled.
When the plane’s not full, it’s great, too – middle seats are almost always the last to fill up as people filter in, where a typical booking scheme might try to push off middle seats early to keep window/aisle seats for “rewards” travelers, and everybody clustered in one part of the plane might not even notice how many empty seats there are.
And sometimes the pilots sing or do a “Heigh-ho Silver!” routine on takeoff/landing. I like Southwest.
No, they seem to want aisle or window seats more than they want to sit at the front of the plane. Even the people like me, who don’t like being at the back of the plane because it means a long wait to get off (even when I don’t have a connection to make, I just don’t like waiting) will find the furthest forward available aisle or window seat.
Love SWA. If at all possible, that’s who I fly. I like the boarding policy, but the normal way doesn’t bother me, either. What I like is that you can change your ticket (or cancel it) at any time, and they don’t charge you a ton of money for the privilege.
My husband is military and we live on Okinawa, and we can get free flights from here to Seattle, but the flights aren’t guaranteed. Once we had tickets from Seattle to our home state and the military flight was delayed 24 hrs. We tried to change the ticket with American Airlines, and the cost to do so was more than the original tickets. In fact, it was cheaper to purchase new last minute tickets from SWA than to change the AA tickets, so we did.
Also, their planes are nice and new and relatively comfortable. Last time we flew United their seats were crap and had NO leg room. I’m 5’2" and could barely squeeze my knees in. It was ridiculous.
I never really give a shit where I’m sitting on a domestic flight. I mean, it’s two and a half hours. I can deal.
If Southwest starts offering transatlantic service, I will care.
I had an awkward moment on Southwest a couple of years ago. My folks and I were heading home from Vegas, we didn’t check in online because we didn’t have a computer so it’s our fault that we didn’t have reserved seats.
We were in the last boarding group so obviously we were splitting up and just looking to plunk down where we could. The 3 flight attendants were really irritated, they kept snapping at us to sit down…which we would have done had there been room. We were jammed in there like cattle and they kept making eye contact and saying “Sit down.” I felt bad but there was NO PLACE TO SIT.
Eventually they yelled at other passengers to put their children on their laps so that everyone could sit down. It went on and on, I guess people didn’t pick up their kids? My folks and the other group D passengers got sat down but I managed to make it to the back of the plane without finding a seat. Man, the flight attendants were pissed.
One of them grabbed me by the shoulder and marched me to the front of the plane, hell, I thought I’d have to catch a different flight. I kept saying I was sorry but I couldn’t find a seat. This angry little woman hauled me up and down the aisle couple of times snapping at people to pick up their kids.
Eventually a very nice fat guy hollered that he didn’t need two seats so he, a chatty teen, and I shared the flight home.
At least in that case, it didn’t seem like the boarding policy was successful. OTH, we really should have checked in the night before.
I hate Southworst. I only fly them when the cost is significantly less. I find their staff to be supercilious and obnoxious, the cattle call unbearable and I have NEVER EVER been on a Southworst flight that leaves on time.
One thing that has always bothered me (in addition to the cattle call) is that they grossly inflate their travel times so that their on-time rate seems much higher than it is. I regularly fly from Chicago to San Diego. It’s about 4 hours 40 minutes there and about 4 hours 15 back. They often quote travel time as 5 hours plus… So even when you leave 45 minutes late, you still arrive “on time”. I guess I am arriving at the time they promised, but I’m still standing in the departure line, at the airport for an additional 45 minutes on top of what I’ve planned. It’s frustrating.
I don’t like that they no longer let families with small children board first. When I’m flying by myself, I like them.
I just flew from Franfurt to San Francisco in a middle seat. I wish Southwest flew that route!
I’m a big dude and I love Southwest’s system, now that they added the numbers to the letters. Previously it was just a horrible race to wait in line at the gate for ages, but they fixed that.
If I pick a seat on a regular airline, I can almost guarantee I will end up setting next to other big dudes. Now, I just fit in a seat OK, but it’s clearly more comfortable if I can relax and stretch my shoulders and arms out into a neighboring seat. Under southwests system, people can make a more intelligent choice to sit next to me or not, or if I’m a last minute traveller and in the C group, I can choose to sit next to a smaller person rather than rub shoulders with another big guy the whole trip.
There are many things I love about southwest, that is just one of them.
I absolutely love the “jungle law” aspect of it.
It’s an interesting insight into group dynamic too. Once I was flying on southwest, and we were early at the gate; so early that no one had lined up. you could obviously see the 10-or-so people nearest the gate were getting tense about who was going to make the first move and get in line, coyly looking at everyone as if the coveted “first spot in the A group line” was a freshly-killed animal. Of course, me being the brutish cad I am decided to get the party started. I and my flying partner got in line. I promptly left my flying partner and went to the bathroom. I come back a minute later and there’s a line 20-people long.
I never thought I’d like southwest airlines, and that was my first flying experience (with them). I quickly turned a fan, if nothing for the social commentary it provides on how large swaths of humanity are basically trainwrecks.
(apparently now they aren’t as ruthlessly darwinian about the whole thing. boo)
Frankly, this is the cohort of people who should be last to get on. Along with the octogenarians and invalids. Survival of the fittest and fastest, boo yeah.
OK, I hope you enjoy your flight when I plunk my six-month-old’s carseat in the middle seat next to you and go sit at the other end of the plane.
Oh, I didn’t explain the second part of my plan: said families, octogenarians, and invalids are relegated to the rear of the plane. all seats reserved for the appropriate numbers of said travelers on a given flight.
Having travelled from Baltimore to Phoenix - and back - with spouse and 2 kids, I dislike it. The outbound trip was OK, as it was Christmas day and the plane wasn’t too crowded.
The return… well, the airport was a zoo (New Year’s Day), it took most of an hour to get our luggage checked and for us to get through security, and they were starting to board. No way would we have been able to get even 2 sets of 2 seats together. With kids who were 8 and 11 at the time, this was not optimal.
Fortunately, I had the foresight to fall and break my elbow (and bang up my leg pretty badly) while we were in Arizona. The sling and my obvious limp got us right on at the front with the other preboarders.
Not that I recommend faking an injury, but in this case it made a logistically unacceptable seating problem work out. So there was a silver lining to that broken bone!
Travelling as a single person with no carry-on luggage, I could deal with it. As a family no way in hell will I fly Southwest.
:eek:
I hope you lodged a complaint with the airline when you got to your destination - no way should the crew have been yelling at people to sit down!
It also sounds a lot like they oversold the damn flight, if there weren’t enough seats. I’m guessing the fat man had bought 2 seats per the airline’s policy.
I’m adding SW to the list of carriers I won’t voluntarily fly again! (United is tops on that list. Every truly miserable flying experience I’ve had has been on United).
I fly at least one round trip a week. I would fly all on Southwest if I could. Some say it’s like Greyhound. So? You get on, you sit down, you go. It’s efficient, it works. Anything else is just nonsense.
What tweaks me on other airlines about their boarding process is:
Now we are boarding our platinum elite awsome members.
Now we are boarding our titanium special class.
Now we are boarding our gilded periwinkle optimum members.
Now we are boarding anyone who needs extra time (but not families with small children).
Now we are boarding our partner masonic handshake members.
and on and on and on…
Heh. My wife is very into staying seated until the last possible moment, while I’m of the “I might as well stand in line as anywhere else” group. My legs are a lot longer than hers. The old system led to lots of tension. It was slightly better at airports where they had seats kind of along the A line, but the new one is far, far better.