Just a note to still get there extra early.

Even though you will be pre-boarding, so will half the plane. You are traveling Easter Week and the plane will be full of families.

The only time I've ever flown SouthWest was during an also busy time and even though we were the first people to board in the first group, the plane was almost half full by the time we got on.

I want the families with to board first - so I can sit far away.

GoTravel, could it have been that your Southwest plane was stopping over on the way from somewhere else, so when you got on you saw a bunch of passengers who had flow in from the previous city?

Andrew

Andrew, it was an originating early morning flight in Raleigh to Kansas City.

That was one of the things that turned me off to Southwest was the massive pre boarding and the stupid no seat assignment.

I flew them in 1999 and have never flown Southwest again and will not.

even though we were the first people to board in the first group, the plane was almost half full by the time we got on.

That is usually because most Southwest flights have multiple stops. Most of those folks already on board were probably continuing passengers from an earlier stop. I guess you could say yhey "pre-boarded", but it was likely 2 to 3 hours earlier.

Except for some unusual situations (I once was on a WN flight out of Burbank that had maybe 20 families w/ small children -- all twins! They were coming from a twins convention) there are usually only 15 to 20+ people pre-boarding any particular flight.

Go, I was going to ask the same thing Andrew did. I fly SW quite a bit and have never had that experience you did. I can see how that would be upsetting however...Then again, I'm almost always in the A group and near the front of the A line.

Okay y'all, it was an originating flight at around 6:30AM or so in the morning and it was over a holiday time.

You have flown them ONCE nearly seven years ago and base your entire opinion on that one incident??

If that were the case for me there would hardly be an airline anywhere I could still fly. Not every flight is perfect and to swear off an airline because of one semi-bad experience seems extreme.

I have flown WN probably 150 times over the past 10-15 years and have had much less problems w/ them than on almost any other airline.

Yep.

I was so turned off by the boarding process I swore I would never fly Southwest again and never have and never will.

I ran into frequent flyer trouble with Delta (they refused to give me Skymiles for a roundtrip CHS SFO flight) back in the mid nineties and I cut ties with them.

I called US Airways and asked what they would do for me and they immediately give me gold medallion status for transferring my business and I've never looked back.

You get one shot with me and that's it. I put my money where my mouth is.

I would never fly either Delta or SW again.

And when USAir goes out of business, your choices will be . . . . .?

That is a moot point because US Airways is out of bankruptcy and just merged with America West.

Why does it bother you that I will not fly SW or Delta?

I can always fly JetBlue, American, United, Northwest, Frontier, Hooters, Spirit, or a bunch of other lines.

I don't like the way either company does business so it would be insane of me to fiscally support either company.

For what it's worth, my parents have enjoyed flying first class on AA the last couple of years (those credit card miles are a cool thing), but a year ago I convinced them to fly Southwest for the first time after they couldn't get a good AA flight. I was a little worried about how they would take to it, but they raved about Southwest, how friendly the people were, etc. They flew Southwest again last month and again enjoyed the experience. They managed to get desired seats every time (got in the A group by printing boading passes 24 hours in advance). Sure, they will still take AA 1st class if given the choice, but they have no problem at all flying Southwest especially when they get such good seats.

Andrew

Just back from my soggy trip to Pasadena (kids marched in the parade) and saw this. I just wanted to add that I didn't want to preboard with my grandparents to get great seats. We already had "A" group boarding passes. But it was very difficult to travel with them. (I am sure that this was their last trip anywhere.) I had one elderly grandparent with dementia (he thought that the entire trip was on a bus) but he is mobile. I also had my barely moving grandmother who is deaf. I couldn't seat grandpa and leave him to go get grandma. He wouldn't have been there when I came back. But grandma could only walk at a shuffle pace. I felt that I was in a very similar situation to someone who was traveling with a 2 yo and a 4yo. All I wanted was a chance to get them into a seat before the mad rush.