Major Southwest Changes Coming
Southwest has been in a bad spot financially over the past few years. One of the major selling points has been their open seating policy where once you board, it’s first come first serve. That is all about to change as well as some other new enhancements. In my opinion, this is long overdue and actually kept me from flying with them.
Southwest’s New Seating Policy
Details are limited at this point and we don’t know when this will take effect, but Southwest has announced they are ditching their open seating policy and will be assigning seats. Additionally, at some point in the future, at least one third of their seats will have extra legroom. Assigned seating will be a much easier thing to implement as its just a software update. However, adding extra legroom seats will take a lot more time. Planes will have to be taken out of service and have the seats rearranged to accommodate the extra space. Ideally, they will remove a couple rows of seats to allow for some rows to have extra legroom. Southwest has always had generous legroom so hopefully they don’t plan on keeping the same number of seats which would mean legroom decreasing for the other 2/3rds of seats.
In February of this year, they announced all new seats for newly delivered planes in 2025. At the time they stated they would not be increasing the number of seats even though the new ones are thinner than what they have now. Theoretically, that means more legroom. We’ll see if that holds up with their new plans.
Southwest’s New Interiors
Here’s what Southwest CEO Bob Jordan had to say:
“Moving to assigned seating and offering premium legroom options will be a transformational change that cuts across almost all aspects of the Company. Although our unique open seating model has been a part of Southwest Airlines since our inception, our thoughtful and extensive research makes it clear this is the right choice— at the right time—for our Customers, our People, and our Shareholders. We are excited to incorporate Customer and Employee feedback to design a unique experience that only Southwest can deliver. We have been building purposefully to this change as part of a comprehensive upgrade to the Southwest experience as we focus on Customer expectations – and it will unlock new sources of revenue consistent with our laser focus on delivering improved financial performance.”
These Changes Are a Long Time Coming
For years, Southwest has been one of the more profitable airlines in the US and for that reason didn’t see the need to change their business model. However, more recently as their profits have decreased (50% decrease in Q2 2024) due to changes in passenger travel, increased competition, and rising costs, they’ve finally decided to make changes. More and more people are opting for premium seats and flying longer and further. Southwest launched flights to Hawaii from the West coast back in 2019 and in 2021 launched Phoenix (PHX) to Honolulu (HNL) topping out at almost 3,000 miles and blocked at nearly 7 hours.
Without assigned seating, being stuck in the middle seat sounds pretty miserable for that long of a flight. Now, their average flight is only 753 miles which is certainly doable in a middle seat, yet not ideal.
Southwest’s Longest Flight from Phoenix to Honolulu
I would certainly pay more money to ensure I wasn’t sitting in a middle seat on a flight of this length. There are also going to be those who are would rather save the cash and sit wherever.
This also means that Southwest can generate more incremental revenue by selling assigned seats as well as premium extra legroom seats. I think it is a logical choice for them.
Wrapping Up
Southwest is planning on introducing assigned seating for the first time in their 50 year history as well as premium extra legroom seats. We don’t know when we’ll see these changes but I’m excited they are finally making it happen.
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