The end of January saw the end of Southwest Airline’s open seating policy as well as its A/B/C boarding system in favor of assigned seating.
Originally the Dallas-based carrier’s open-seat system was adopted to make boarding faster and thereby have their planes and crews spend less time on the ground. The benefit of this was that Southwest’s more efficient boarding enabled the carrier to schedule more flights in 24 hours. Moreover, it’s passengers were divided into three groups according to reflect their check in times. Group A boarded first giving them the opportunity to claim the preferred seats with groups B and C following.
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Beginning January 27, the old open seating became a thing of the past and assigned seating began along with an option to pay more for specific seats such as those closer to the front or those offering extra legroom.
A new eight-group boarding system will be implemented using the passenger’s seat placement, loyalty tier status and fare class to determine an individual’s group. Families or other groups of nine or less will be placed in the same boarding group. Southwest says it will be converting its gates to the new boarding system in phases, which may take as long as two months to complete.
Boarding passes beginning January 27 show seat assignments as well as the passenger’s boarding group.
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