Southwest announced new boarding format
 

Right now, there are 45 "A"s, 45 "B"s, and the rest "C"s; with "A", "B" and "C" lines at each gate to line up. Families with young children can board first.

New format, starting early November, will have 6 groups. "A1-30", "A31-60", "B61-90", "B91-120" and so on. Only after all "A"s have been boarded will the "B"s line up.

Another <b>major change</b> is that family with young children will board <b>between the A and B groups</b>, not before.

Here's the news release:

http://www.swamedia.com/about_swa/pr..._boarding.html

That's why I would never fly SW unless I have to.

Correct me if I'm wrong. If I just want to buy a ticket on a SW at the last minute, I will end up with the most expensive ticket, yet be relegated to some middle seat in the back by the time &quot;group B91-120&quot; starts boarding. Most if not all As use the 24 hour OLCI, but these passengers probably bought the tickets long time ago when the tickets were still cheap. But a last minute, walk up buyer gets punished. Something is wrong with this system. Why woiuld SW want to push away a high fare buyer?

AAFF - But to be fair, if you're buying a last minute ticket for a flight within 24 hours, chances are you won't get a nice seat on the other airlines either.

For example, on Continental, all seats are open to everyone that does OLCI. The only &quot;compensation&quot; is that if an elite on a Y ticket ends up in a middle seat, he/she can get 2,500 miles. That's all.

I don't know about CO, but that's why AA blocks some seats which are under airport control. The airport control takes over at 3 hours before the scheduled flight. Only then the seat map is fully opened to the TA and GA and they can assign the seats to whomever they want but in most cases they look at the situation. The TA at the check in desk will try to assign the best seat available to the last minute buyer. Not a guarantee but certainly not a done deal as with SW.

Assuming that both flights have about the same loads on any given day and lately they are full.

btw, happy to report that I needed an emergency ticket to return home from LAX Monday night. Did the booking on line at 25K miles R/T in Y (as opposed to ~$450), and no F award available Monday night, at about 3 hours before the scheduled flight. Took the free Hilton shuttle about an 1.5 hour earlier and breezed through check in and security and was able to get an exit row seat on both flights. LAX-MIA-TPA. I never use my miles on a domestic ticket in Y, a waste IMHO, but in this case it was worth it. This was an emergency and I was just happy that the seats were available for a regular award ticket at 3 hours before. This is also the first time I sat in Y on AA in years. Bought 1 bottle of wine for $5, popped 2 sleeping pills and next think I saw was the morning traffic on Miami's hwys as we were landing. Uneventful flight.

I probably won't even use the return but AA does not have one way awards.

AA, if you are some elite FF or paying for a business/first class seat on any airline, of course you'll get better treatment. But if you walk up to an AA counter at the last minute and aren't gold, silver, platinum, exec. or anything else and the plane's full, you aren't going to be assigned a wonderful seat -- no different from SW.

That's not the point here. AA BLOCKS about 20 seats in economy for airport control only. Even an EXP can't get assign to these seats if all others are taken until they check in att the airport. What appears to you on aa.com as a full plane and it won't let you pick a seat, then it means that you will be getting one of the BLOCKED seats, regardless if you have status or not. This is done for the high paying, last minute passenger and also to be able to keep families with children together without having to ask other passengers to move. In most cases it works perfectly. No need for status.

AAFF wrote: &quot;But a last minute, walk up buyer gets punished. Something is wrong with this system. Why would SW want to push away a high fare buyer?&quot;

Because the high fare buyer is (1) LATE! and (2) not their target passenger (if by &quot;last minute-walk-up buyer&quot; you are implying &quot;expense-account business-traveler&quot;). You don't wanna fly them? Don't. But people who do aren't stupid for preferring the discount prices, reward for planning, and cheerful employees.

I simply prefer assigned seating, regardless of the airline.

AAFF, I think you got it wrong.

If you buy a ticket last minute, yes, it will be the most expensive.

Your seat will not depend on when you make your reservation, but on when you check in. If you check in 24 hrs before the flight and get an A boarding pass, you choose your seat.

If you check in in the airport, you get a C and then most likely you're in the back in the middle seat. And there is no room for your carry-on.

<b>FainaAgain</b>,

I thought that's what I said. A last minute walk up ticket buyer will get screwed although probably hold the most expensive ticket.

Oh, for me &quot;last minute&quot; is 2 weeks in advance. I didn't think &quot;last minute&quot; is the same day :) SORRY!

Back to the announcement. I think one of the most important thing is that they're going to stick with open boarding with no assigned seats.

I'm surprised they don't follow Ryanair's practice and charge people more to get the &quot;A&quot; passes... ;)

RK, don't give them any ideas!!!!!!!!! :))

So basically, the As are going to board in numerical order, then the Bs, etc. Well, at least this way you won't worry about getting there super early hoping to get a spot at the front of the A line. I always hated that. I just wonder if I'll still be able to get in the A group when I check in online.

No, even though you have a number, they're not going line up A1, A2, A3, etc...

So, even if you're A1, if you don't line up with A2-30, you can still be the 30th to get on.

rkkwan,
Don't mean to argue, but that certainly isn't the way they show the new system on line. It looks like you line up in numerical order, 1-30.

I don't read it that way. We'll find out soon. But it'll look absolutely ridiculous if they have to line up 30 people - like a Police lineup... :)

Or why not just call each person. &quot;A1 - please board&quot;. &quot;A2 - your turn&quot;. &quot;A3 - A3, come hurry. Or else we'll call A4 then&quot;...

;)

I agree with <b>rkkwan</b>. All SW did is break up a large &quot;group A&quot; into smaller &quot;groups&quot; i.e. A1-30, A31-60 and so on, but in no way will they expect passengers to line up according to their number within their group.

According to what I'm reading (the SWA article as well as Bill Owen's blog), they will board passengers in groups of five. so it sounds like A1-A5 will board first, then A6-A10 will board, and so on.

Sorry, forgot to paste the quote from Owen's blog:

&quot;Basically, the new boarding procedure divides the airplane into groups of five Customers, based upon the order in which a Customer checks in. The first Customer gets an A 1 and so on, and they will line up to board in their group of five.&quot;

If you go to SW web site, they have a video showing signs with 1-5, 6-10, etc for people to line up next to when the flight is called for boarding. The web site talks about &quot;eliminating the need for Customers to “camp-out” in their boarding line at the gate.&quot;

Now, if I'm understanding it correctly now:

Basically they divided passengers into 5 large groups: A1-30, A31-60, B61-90, B91-120 and C121-end; then within each group of 30, they subdivide them into 6 groups of 5 passengers each.

This sounds pretty confusing on paper, but I hope it'll work better at the actual gate.

I can imagine the confusion if I get a B1-5, my elderly parents get B6-10... they will panic to be a yard away from me :))

See, they could have done A, B, C, D and E. But who wants an &quot;E&quot;? No one even wants a &quot;C&quot; now.

So, with the new system, 120 of the typical 137 passengers will be &quot;A&quot; or &quot;B&quot;. Makes more of their parents happy.

<i>&quot;...where all the children are above average&quot;.</i>

Faina: the way rkkwan's initial post says is that those needing assistance, like families and people with young kids, will board between Groups A and B.

Thank goodness. No more having to stand in line for an hour just to get a good seat. Now all you have to do is be one of the first ones to check in online, which is becoming a little more difficult now that there are companies doing this with computers for people for a fee.

AAFF, good that you got a saver award, but does AA not have a one-way award at half the rt mileage for upper tier elites?

No.:-(

I flew on SW 2 or 3 trips a month for the last 15 years and I love the airline. (I was even the featured flyer in the magazine one month.) Sometime a while back, maybe earlier this year, i received a request from SW to complete a survey regarding seat assignment and various permutations of checkin and boarding plans. I don't know how many surverys were completed, and whether they were sent to every single person who gets email from SW or belongs to Rapid Rewards OR whether only the most frequent flyers were surveyed. Clearly the majority of its frequent flyers preferred some version of open seating, as do I, and this may have been mentioned in the news release. &quot;We&quot; asked for it, and we got it. I, fo one, am glad they are not going to just let all the latecoming &quot;C&quot; familes with small kids (and this should be kids under 5 yrs old!!) cut in front of everyone else who made a point of getting there early.

Of course if they ask their current flyers if they want open seating or seat assignments, they'll get that the majority likes open seating. Those who want seat assignments aren't with them anyways!

What they need to find out is that how much business they're NOT GETTING right now because of no seat assignments, and how many of their current customers THEY'LL LOSE if they switch.

AAFF, you're exactly on target. I flew WN last minute (booked 3 hrs. prior to departure) earlier this year, and, as I have mentioned elsewhere, I paid the highest possible fare &amp; got a &quot;C&quot; boarding pass, where I was relegated to a middle seat. As I’ve said, WN is the only airline where, when you pay more, you get less. It’s been my experience that on most legacy carriers, most pax still get seat assignments at check-in; thus, while you certainly have no guarantee of a good seat, you have a better chance than on WN. Also, many legacies offer F upgrades for next to nothing for full-fare Y pax (when available, of course) – something WN can’t offer.

As far as their “new” seating system, it’s just the same, old, crappo “A-B-C” system” with some minor modifications. I still think people are going to camp out in the boarding area in order to fight for a seat, and thus, it doesn’t make me want to fly them.

And, eliminating family pre-boards seems like idiocy at it’s best.

And, rkkwan, as usual, you’re right on target. Since their fuel hedges are eroding, they’d better start worrying about what the pax who don’t fly them want!!

What possible difference could the seat selection method, or lack of it, be with regards to the overall odds of landing in a bad seat, over the entire population of passengers? If the plane is full, then all the bad seats will be filled, and if the plane isn't full, then the bad seats will be the last to be filled, regardless of the seat selection method.

Because of an indivdual's particular circumstances, one or another airline's method may work better for him or her. For example, if someone has status on an airline, he may want to preferentially book on that airline because he can &quot;jump the line&quot; and book better seats than are available to the general public.

But overall, no scheme can give better seats to everybody.

Ed

I like it. Some airlines in the past used to hand you numbers as you got the gate. Worked ok. Recently I had 4 seat assignments on 2 legs and didn't get any of the seats I had been told I had. USAirways. Return trip we had all of our assigned seats.
In this case planning ahead pays off.