A modest proposal for Southwest

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Yes, Southwest is testing reserved seating, and CEO Gary Kelly posted an explanation on the official Southwest blog. The Baltimore Sun looks at the comment section of the post, and the tenor of responses: negative!

Two pro-open-seating arguments make some sense to me: 1) Some last-minute travelers believe they have a better shot at getting a good seat on Southwest than they would on other airlines, and 2) some people use open seating to try to avoid sitting near potentially unpleasant seatmates.

So how about a compromise: Let anyone who WANTS a reserved seat get one. Guarantee reserved seats to full-fare tickets. (It’s not like you can upgrade on an all-coach flight.) Heck, even charge a couple bucks for a reserved seat, a la European discount carriers or rail companies. Maybe even limit the number of reservations to, say, 60 of the 137 seats on each plane, but let the last-minute full-fare folks override this limit. Board people with seat assignments first, and make only one call for that group. Then do open boarding for the rest.

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tags: travel | Southwest Airlines

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Short hops — June 23, 2006 »

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Southwest Airlines, airline seating. You can subscribe to the comments left on this individual post through this RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “A modest proposal for Southwest”

1. Anonymous says:
   June 23rd, 2006 at 11:35 pm |

   Brilliant! And why do you not work for SWA?

   Rob
   theairlinehub.com

2. Stan Hieronymus says:
   June 26th, 2006 at 7:26 pm |

   Since I don’t usually fly SWA but did last week …

   Twice I was on flights that were full and running late. Once the plane gets two thirds full and people have to start sitting in middle seats then things grind to a halt. Probably made the departure later.

   Other times I have flown the SWA system seemed to get planes boarded more quickly, but this gave me reason to pause.

   I also don’t quite get lining up an hour in advance of boarding - which happened when one flight was delayed.

3. Better Living Through Miles says:
   June 26th, 2006 at 8:54 pm |

   Thanks, Rob — I’ll be happy to serve as a consultant to Southwest, for a fee, of course…

   Stan — Interesting observation that middle seats = delays.

4. Opening day jitters? Southwest’s assigned seating gets mixed reviews » Upgrade: Travel Better says:
   April 8th, 2007 at 12:02 pm |

   […] going to plug my earlier proposal for Southwest again. Let a limited number of those who want assigned seats choose them in advance […]

5. Southwest to maintain unassigned seating (for now) » Upgrade: Travel Better says:
   March 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am |

   […] I’ve suggested before, why not allow those who WANT an assigned seat to get one? If you really “like seeing […]

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