I have never flown southwest before but I know that they do not assign seats. My question is, What are the chances of family of 3 Me, wife, daughter (5 year old) getting to sit together if we are not in "A" boarding group. Also if we happen to be in "C" group and there are not 2 seats together will they make a 5 year old sit by themselves. Would like to hear any experiences you all may have on this matter.

I believe they have advance seating for families with children. You should be ok.

I'd suggest you approach the desk at the gate and tell them your 5 year old is a real "monster", even if he's not. That way, I assure you they'll seat you together.

Have you purchase d your tickets already?
If so, buy them individually not all on the same online order. Unless it has changed, "group" tickets are not eligble for online check-in.

People may not move to accomdate adults waniting to sit together....but most wil move to accomodate a child.

Southwest always lets people travelling with children board first so that they can sit together. With Southwest, you can also print out your boarding passes the day before your flight.

Just get there early enough so you can be in the first boarding group.

If that doesn't work, I suggest you fly another airline so you can have assigned seating.

We just flew Southwest, flying out the day before Thanksgiving and returning Tuesday, so planes were very full and our experiences may not apply on less busy days/routes.

First, and your best bet, is that families with children 4 and under pre-board, right behind the wheelchairs and their "groups", (and there were groups with every wheelchair ). Unless your child is very large they probably wouldn't question her age.

Second option: you can get boarding passes online starting at 12:01 AM of the day you fly. We did this going out--had an early flight so were up early and got A boarding passes around 6 AM online.

On the return we didn't have access to a computer, and although we were at the airport 2 hours early, we got C boarding passes. A man standing behind us while we waited to board said he'd tried to go online for his around 7:30 that morning, but still got a C boarding pass. Although we were toward the front of the C boarders, there weren't two seats together and my husband and I sat apart for that leg...fine for us, not for you!

I have been on a Southwest flight at another time where a family boarded and were unable to find two seats together. The flight attendants explained the situation and asked for someone to volunteer to change seats. People didn't exactly leap out of their seats to come to the rescue, but someone did eventually offer their seat up.

On all legs of our flights the pre-boarding line was very very long, and some seemingly able-bodied people were part of it, as well as the "groups" that accompanied the wheelchair passengers. My guess is that their pre-boarding regulations are somewhat lax. Everyone standing in line was grumbling about the situation. Our return flight took us Las Vegas to San Antonio, then San Antonio to Tampa. As I said earlier, we were C boarders on the LV to San Antonio leg, but we had A boarding passes from SA to Tampa, and were quite near the front of the A boarding line as our first flight arrived at the gate next to our departure gate. Still, there were so many pre-boarders that we did not find two seats together until we reached the back half of the plane!

I hate to advise you to stretch the truth, but after our experiences, that may be your safest course of action.

To Dick: Southwest finally changed that policy. Here is what it says on their website:

Exciting new changes to Online Checkin @ southwest.com! Now multiple Customers who are traveling on the same reservation can check in online and request their boarding passes.

To gmoney: If you do a search on this message board, you'll find the issue of boarding with children on Southwest has been discussed several times. I seem to recall that they allow families with young children to board first, but I'm not sure what the cut-off age is for the children. Best advice would be to call the airline directly.

Re Dick's statement, Southwest has changed their policy and those with a group reservation may now check-in online as a group. Very simple procedure--you enter your confirmation # and one passenger's name, then new screens come up for every other passenger on that reservation.

Just flew Southwest for t-day weekend. They have a pre-boarding areas for wheelchairs first, then families with kids 4 and under. No one was checking ages -- go ahead with the pre-board group.

I checked in on-line at 12:05am and got group A. When returning, we checked in at the airport 2 1/2 hours before the flight and got group B. If you're in group A, you will have no problem finding 3 seats together (although they will be towards the back). Group B is questionable.

Good luck.

Thanks everyone for your responses. Just curious, has anyone ever experienced a flight where a young child has had to sit by themselves because noone would give up their seats or do the FA's usually make people change seats? I just can't imagine that they would force a scared child to sit with strangers.

The only time I've ever seen a child seated by themselves on an airline was when the child was travelling alone.

Otherwise the flight attendants will find seating for the child to be seated with at least one parent. I mean, who wants to be the person sitting next to an unattended child, especially under the age of 6? I may be wrong about this, but I believe there would be liability issues if a child were to be seated alone.

There are no liability issues if a child is seated by themselves and FAs cannot force someone to give up their seat.

Yes, it is okay for someone to not give up their seat so that a child may sit with parent.

I have a family member that must be seated in a aisle seat so that the right leg can stay extended for medical reasons.

Of course most people I know would give up their seat but don't assume it's a given.

I've never seen a child sitting alone on SW that wasn't travelling alone.

So many people "pre-board" Southwest flights these days that the "A" group is largely irrelevant! It's more like "A+" and "A-" followed by the poor souls in B and (god forbid) C.

I fly Southwest a few times a month, so I'll add to the chorus, just tell them you need to pre-board, there's no reason they'll deny you that with a little kid. And yes, you can now check in together online, they did change their policy.

love
roxy

GReat news that SWA now lets you check-in online if you have more that one person on the same ticket.

Seemed so dumb, that 2 or more on the same ticked could check in using the kiosk but not online.

I was not allowed to preboard with my 5 yr old granddaughter because she was "too old".

Dick, I think Southwest had to have an age cap because so many people were preboarding with kids that half the plane was full by the time they let everyone else on.

Preboarding with small children is one thing but with tweens is ridiculous.

If I got my boarding pass in advance and had an aisle seat, I wouldn't give my seat to a kid who was in Group C and it meant I had a middle seat. Lack of planning on your part doesn't create an emergency for me.

Wow, it's tough having children and travelling!
M