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Southwest Airlines was known as the carrier that offered free, open seating. The airline has been struggling lately and it just announced that it is essentially overhauling its business model. Southwest will introduce assigned seating, extra legroom options, and begin flying some redeye flights for the first time in its history.
Assigned Seating
Southwest has always offered seats on a first-come, first-served basis. This led to massive gaming of this system with people ordering unnecessary wheelchairs to board first, blocking seats with bags and personal items, and other ways to get seats first. This is about to change. The airline says that 80% of Southwest passengers and 86% of potential passengers prefer an assigned seat. Open seating and the related shenanigans listed above is the number one reason that customers steer away.
Bob Jordan, President, CEO, & Vice Chairman of the Board at Southwest, said:
Moving to assigned seating and offering premium legroom options will be a transformational change that cuts across almost all aspects of the Company. Although our unique open seating model has been a part of Southwest Airlines since our inception, our thoughtful and extensive research makes it clear this is the right choice—at the right time—for our Customers, our People, and our Shareholders. We are excited to incorporate Customer and Employee feedback to design a unique experience that only Southwest can deliver. We have been building purposefully to this change as part of a comprehensive upgrade to the Southwest experience as we focus on Customer expectations – and it will unlock new sources of revenue consistent with our laser focus on delivering improved financial performance.”
Premium Options
Southwest is going to offer a premium, extended legroom group of seats (similar to what American, Delta, and United currently offer). Specific cabin layouts have not been released, but Southwest expects roughly /3 of seats across the fleet to offer extended legroom, which is in line with others in the industry.
Redeye Flights
For over 50 years, Southwest operated without redeye flights. Beginning on February 13th, it will launch five new redeye options. These include:
- Las Vegas Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).
- Las Vegas Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) to Orlando International Airport (MCO).
- Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).
- Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Nashville International Airport (BNA).
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).
Southwest’s systems used to need to be reset daily. This forced all landings to occur by 11:00 PM PST. A recent switch to Amadeus as well as newly signed pilot and flight attendant contracts means that Southwest will turn into a 24-hour operation.
Anthony’s Take: All of Southwest’s unique selling propositions are being thrown out. It will be interesting to see if this is enough to turn the airline’s business around. These changes will eliminate a lot of the games being played and provide some ancillary revenue (premium seats, etc.) for Southwest. I don’t fly the airline and even with these changes, I will not be flying with it.
(Image Credits: Nick Morales and Southwest Airlines.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
