Southwest Airlines Says Bye to Open Seating—and Hello to Boarding Complexity

What is the champion mode to cram radical into a tin tin successful the sky?

For 5 decades, Dallas-based fund hose Southwest made its estimation connected its unsocial unfastened seating policy. Savvy passengers who checked successful aboriginal got to committee early, too, lining up astatine distinctive metallic stanchions to assertion archetypal dibs connected whichever spot they preferred. The fairer-than-thou attack extended each the mode into Southeast's cabins: For years, the hose had nary first-class seating, and each seats fundamentally looked the same.

No longer! On Tuesday, Southwest Airlines officially inaugurated its caller assigned seating policy, the past successful a suite of changes that moves it person to the mean of hose operations. Taken by itself, the caller policy, which breaks passengers into boarding groups and loads them according to spot location, should beryllium much efficient.

But unluckily for optimization enthusiasts, Southwest’s caller boarding program comes with immoderate asterisks—concessions that executives accidental volition goose profits—that volition apt marque the process pokier than it could be.

First, a spot much astir the caller plan. In lieu of boarding by check-in time, passengers volition participate the compartment by group. They’ll beryllium assigned to those groups according to the Window-Middle-Aisle method, oregon WILMA for short: starting astatine the backmost of the airplane and moving forward, model spot holders get onboard first; past mediate seaters, besides starting astatine the backmost of the plane; past aisle. Airlines usage the WILMA method due to the fact that it reduces clogs successful the aisle arsenic radical find their seats. It besides gives model seaters clip to stow their luggage earlier the adjacent question of passengers committee the flight. United Airlines, which switched backmost to the WILMA method successful 2023, says it shaves minutes disconnected the boarding process—a large woody successful a concern wherever clip is choky and equals money.

But the caller Southwest Airlines process has immoderate catches that volition gum up the works. The institution besides inaugurated successful the past twelvemonth a much capitalist attack to aerial question that gives much perks to predominant Southwest fliers, and passengers consenting to walk much to committee aboriginal oregon snag other legroom. People who bargain a caller “priority boarding” fare get connected first. Then top-tier predominant fliers, radical who take the astir costly “choice other fare,” and those who person bought the airline’s caller “extra legroom” sets. Then different predominant fliers, those who take the adjacent fare level, and recognition paper members. Then, finally, those bottom-of-the-barrel system people folks.

Southwest believes each these other complications volition marque the institution much money. Just the other legroom seats, which rolled retired past May, should present an other $1.5 cardinal annually by adjacent year, Southwest Airlines president and CEO Robert Jordan told investors past fall. Plus, passengers truly want assigned seats, the hose said erstwhile it announced the changes backmost successful 2024.

Still, the predominant flier programs, recognition paper perks, and adjacent baggage interest strategies are getting successful the mode of perfectly businesslike boarding processes industry-wide, says John Milne, an engineering absorption prof astatine Clarkson University who researches airplane boarding procedures. Overall, these sorts of perks mean airlines are getting "generally worse” astatine loading radical onto planes quickly.

“They’re trying to get the other money—I recognize that,” says Milne. “But it does dilatory things down. ”