First got here assigned seats. Then checked bag charges. Up subsequent: a transfer to conventional boarding teams.
Southwest Airways is reversing course on yet one more key promise it made within the not-so-distant previous.
For months, the airline had made clear its distinctive boarding course of — single-file traces, numbered posts and such — would stay largely intact even because it shifted away from open seating. However this week, a high govt on the Dallas-based service confirmed the airline is now planning to go in a wholly completely different route.
‘The Day Southwest Died’: Reactions pour in in regards to the service’s huge adjustments
“Because it stands as we speak we’re going to cast off the liner up,” Southwest govt vice chairman operations Justin Jones stated, talking this week on the Airways Confidential podcast.
The adjustments will take impact as soon as Southwest begins its new assigned seating mannequin, deliberate for early 2026.
At that time, Jones stated, the service will ditch its one-of-a-kind boarding course of in favor of 1 that can largely resemble the procedures utilized by its opponents — and spell the top of the silver stanchions that line its gates.
“We determined to cast off these at assigned seating,” Jones stated this week. “It permits us to interrupt the teams up into smaller teams and have that extra ordinal boarding in the direction of the again half of the boarding course of.”
Greater than ‘tweaks’ beforehand deliberate
To be clear, Southwest’s current boarding course of required a minimum of some adjustments, at a minimal. In spite of everything, the present setup is tailor-made to its open seating mannequin that is on the outs: prospects get a person boarding place — a de facto spot in line — after which line up alongside the silver posts earlier than continuing to the gate agent and onto the jet bridge.
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As just lately as January, Southwest executives had claimed the service would preserve the essence of that course of even because it moved to assigned seating, save for a number of vital “tweaks.”
“It will really feel very acquainted to Southwest prospects, with boarding positions, lining up sequentially, utilizing the stanchions,” Southwest govt vice chairman Ryan Inexperienced stated, chatting with me in Washington on Jan. 15.
“The client goes to get a boarding place after which they’re going to additionally get a seat project,” Inexperienced added. “Our prospects actually admire the calmness on the gate of the liner up.”
A sequence of 180-degree pivots
But when there’s been one theme constant in Southwest’s adjustments of latest weeks, it is that no matter executives stated final 12 months — and even a few months in the past – could not ring true as we speak.
The final month has seen the airline finish its hallmark two free checked luggage coverage and slash earnings charges for Speedy Rewards factors on lower-level fares — each strikes the airline, final fall, explicitly stated it would not make regardless of wholesale adjustments on the firm.
Current weeks additionally introduced the first worker layoffs in Southwest historical past, all because the service faces continued strain from activist investor group Elliott Funding Administration.
Inexperienced himself, who spoke of sustaining that “acquainted” boarding course of earlier this 12 months, will resign his put up efficient April 1, based on a submitting final month with the U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee.
Because it pertains to the advanced pondering on Southwest’s boarding course of, Jones acknowledged that the airline went “backwards and forwards” on the choice. However he particularly cited the airline’s hope to make its boarding course of extra in line with these seen at different airways, talking on the podcast this week.
“The reason being simply in the end, simply determined for consistency of our product,” he stated. “Not just for Southwest, but in addition what you may expertise on different airways, it was simply straightforward to type of go to somewhat bit extra of an industry-standard boarding course of.”
What’s subsequent?
It appears a probable wager Southwest will intention to capitalize on boarding teams as a part of its Speedy Rewards loyalty program and suite of cobranded bank cards, as different airways do as we speak. On different airways, nicer seats, elite standing and bank card membership usually comes with earlier boarding entry.
And Southwest, more and more, is an airline that appears like its friends, with its bag charges set to take impact Might 28, and its assigned seating switchover deliberate for the primary three months of 2026.
Nonetheless, after yet one more 180-degree shift on a key customer-facing coverage, Southwest loyalists are, at this level, proper to ask: what else could possibly be on the horizon?
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