Southwest's new boarding system
 

We got to use it on Wednesday from Dallas to Albuquerque. It was great! Didn't have to stand in a line until they were starting to board. We had A8 and A9 so we were in the second group to go aboard.

A HUGE improvement - no queuing ahead of time to try and be first ones on the plane.

Thumbs up from me

Debi

Thanks for the report, and glad to know you make your flight out of HOU with time to spare.

Debi - glad you made it back fine. Hope everything turned out OK. I didn't realize they were using the new system in DAL, so appreciate info. If I'm able, we're supposed to go to CMH in 2 weeks, so we'll see if SW using it on any of our legs.

DebitNM, were you assigned seats, or a place in line?

SW now groups people in 5s. With A8 and A9 boarding passes, they'll will be the 2nd group of 5s to board, only after A1-5.

There's still no assigned seats at Southwest. They decide they're not going that route, as many of their most loyal customers fly them specifically because they don't assign seats, or so they say.

I flew out of St Louis on Tuesday, we had 4 lines:

O: 8 wheelchairs! I am serious! Counted each one :)

A, B, C lines.

And they board families with children who didn't get the A pass between A and B lines.

And somehow we took off on-time!!

>And they board families with children who didn't get the A pass between A and B lines.

Anyone else see a business opportunity here?

When did you check in (I assume online) to get A8 and A9?

We had flight that required a change of planes in Dallas [from Houston to Albuquerque].

I checked in [online] 23 hours 59 seconds before the departure time for the first flight.

Both flights showed up, but I could only check the box for the first flight- not the second, later flight. I got a regular A pass for that flight.

I tried later that day when it is was within the 24 hours of the second flight and I could not put a check in the second flight. I tried agan later, but still could only check off the box for the first flight.

As we did not have a printer, we waited until we got to the airport in Houston to print boarding passes. We got passes for both flights and they were both A group.

I did not realize the second passes has the numbers on them until I got to Dallas and went to the gate and saw the new line set up, which I had seen on their website. Sure enough, when I looked at passes they had A8 & A9 printed on them.

Funny thing, people were still lined up in the little groups of 5's a good 45 minutes before departure!

Not me, I sat in a comfortable chair and I went up just as they made the call to start boarding.

Debi