Southwest Airlines Is Ditching Its Open Seating Plan

Bad news for anybody who likes Southwest Airlines for its weird quirks: yesterday the carrier announced that it’s ditching one of its most distinct features. 

After over 50 years the Dallas-based low-cost airline will be scrapping its open seating model. It’ll be replaced by the industry standard policy of assigned seating, along with the introduction of more expensive premium seats with extended legroom. The change goes into effect in 2025, and the company will be announcing more details this September.

If you’ve ever flown Southwest, you probably know how it goes: you buy a ticket without an assigned seat, and then sit anywhere you want once you board the plane. It’s not a mad rush to get onboard, of course; your ticket has a boarding number on it, with a group of A, B or C and a position between one and 60, which is determined by how early you check in for your flight. Obviously the lower that number the better, as you’re more likely to get window or aisle seats or seats closer to the door, and thus the culture of Southwest customers frantically trying to get online exactly 24 hours before their scheduled flight in order to check in and get the lowest number was born. (Or you could pay for “Early Bird” booking to check in earlier—obviously money will always put its thumb on the scales.)

Assigned seating will take away some of the stress and anxiety of flying Southwest, but will also strip the airline of its egalitarian image. Sure, you could pay to cut the line and guarantee a good seat, but once you were on the plane the seats were all basically the same. Now whoever can afford to pay the most will be guaranteed the best seats. 

This also doesn’t guarantee that the old “cattle call” style of boarding is definitely going away. Southwest hasn’t explained if it’ll be moving to a more traditional boarding plan, or if it’ll keep the numbered lineup. Paste reached out to ask about that, and was told that no info beyond what was in the original press release will be available until September. It’s safe to assume anybody who pays for a premium seat will get to board first, but just because seats will now be assigned doesn’t mean Southwest can’t still use the old boarding system. So if you were excited that you’d no longer have to do that awkward little dance—“oh, you’re B17? Well, I’m B15, so I’m going to stand here in front of you”—you should wait until we know more before you celebrate. 

Personally, as somebody who flies several times a month and used to be a Southwest regular, I think this is all great news. And I hope that the lineup system is tossed directly into the heart of the sun. Flying is already a source of tremendous anxiety, and making it even more stressful by not assigning a seat and by making customers have to sort out the line situation themselves felt like a cruel trick. I haven’t flown Southwest in years, but when I did there wasn’t a single time where multiple people weren’t confused about their seat, delaying the whole process while a flight attendant had to explain that they could sit anywhere. And although I’ve had positive interactions with fellow flyers while lining up, I’ve also seen more than a few arguments start over people thinking they’ve been skipped in line. The old Southwest model was a pain, and although that’s not the main reason I stopped flying with them (you just can’t beat Delta if you’re flying out of Atlanta), it was definitely a factor. 

Southwest, of course, has had a rough couple of years. A blizzard and a computer breakdown during the week of Christmas in 2022 forced them to cancel over 15,000 flights during one of the busiest times of the year. They reportedly lost over a billion dollars due to the problem, and had to pay a $140 million fine levied by the Department of Transportation. Their rep hasn’t fully recovered, and maybe removing an arbitrary point of friction and confusion—their weird seating policy—will help them reconnect with wary customers. We’ll find out more in September, apparently.