A hallmark of the Southwest Airlines experience is its boarding process. A letter (A-C) and a number (1-60) is assigned at check in, on a first come, first serve basis. At the airport, you line up in that order to board, and once onboard the aircraft, you can choose whatever seat you want.
Starting in 2025, that is no more. Customer will instead pay to purchase an assigned seat or be assigned one at random.
“The research is clear and indicates that 80% of Southwest customers, and 86% of potential customers, prefer an assigned seat,” said the airline in a statement to CNN.
Premium Seating?
Another famous Southwest seating policy is that all their seats are identical, whether you’re in row one of thirty one. This is about to change. Starting in 2025, as aircraft receive their new interior, premium seating with extra legroom will be added at the front of the aircraft, and available for an extra fee.
Omg I was just about to write this haha! Happy you beat me to this.
The changes are needed, if anything SW was a little late on this. They also just announced they will finally do redeyes: the fact that they didn’t for the past 52 years is insane.
I believe it was just a bit faster for free seats. There has been times people walked passed their row and had to wait for people to shuffle by or they just had to fight the crowd going backwards.
This is rather disappointing. Southwest’s open seating was a big highlight for them out of all the US carriers. If they’re also going to include premium seats for more space, the ticket price is going to be higher which will turn people away. It’s hard to tell if Southwest will continue to be a low cost carrier or become something different
It’s already straying from a true LCC. Looking at pricing alone, on a one way ticket from Denver to Minneapolis, Southwest is charging $179 versus Sun Country’s $49. If you’re going to pay for Southwest, you may as well shell out an extra $16 for Delta.
Southwest’s inflight offerings are also fairly limited. It’s a low cost experience for legacy prices.
What day are you looking at for those prices? How do they compare if you add in one checked bag?
Don’t forget Southwest’s base fare already includes 2 checked bags while that Sun Country fare is likely the base fare without any extras like checked bags.
The same for Delta, basic economy with no checked bags I’m guessing?
A random day in August (I think I picked the 31st, but not positive on that).
That’s where it gets interesting.
Sun Country’s checked bag is $34 (when booked online). Southwest’s bag is free, and so is Delta’s. Sun Country is still the most economical, but those factors do raise the cost.
Along with this, Southwest’s prices are extremely close to legacy carrier Delta, only being ~$100 off while Sun Country ~200-300
For this 1 day, Sun Country’s prices are averaging at $149 (as you can see directly on the website) while SWA is averaging at $301. Delta averages at ~600-625. But only comparing SWA and Sun Country, it actually is more expensive (without any baggage add-ons).
SWA also does point-point so the stops actually add on to the costs
I also like to reserve seats but it takes me a while since I need to go on to check if the window alignment is well, but it might be for extra profits. I still don’t entirely agree with this change considering Southwest is still pretty well off.
Spirit, who has payed seat selections suffered from mass financial lost (nearly Bankrupt, or was in protection with my knowledge) in Pandemic years while SWA seemed quite stable
Interesting, it seems like both southwest and jetblue are trying to be more like the legacy carriers. This seems similar to jetblue adding mini mint to their who fleet and down grading on snacks.
Wait, that was actually still a thing? Sounds like chaos. I remember when easyJet had a similar system like that many many years ago. Didn’t think that any airlines had a system like that left. Interesting.
The prices are definitely going to vary, some days Southwest is significantly cheaper than other carriers. August 31 as an example, only $61 which includes the 2 checked bags:
Those days are only a week away, meaning some of those flights could already be booked full, so that’ll definitely raise the fare level. Try comparing further out in the weeks or months.
Exactly, using a one-stop for Southwest while nonstop for Delta/Sun Country isn’t a good comparison.
This literally isn’t an issue though, literally just go to the back and there’s always open rows. Unless you happen to get Group C (which is probably your own fault), you WILL find a completely open row or at least a 3-4 seats together separated with an aisle.
