Southwest Airlines Is Changing Its Boarding Process Even More

For years, Southwest Airlines has offered travelers a distinctive flying experience — one that’s historically involved open seating and free checked bags. Change is on the horizon for the airline, however, and in the last year Southwest has announced the end of its open seating policy and a plan to start charging for checked bags. The changes don’t stop there, though; based on reporting from The Points Guy’s Sean Cudahy, it sure sounds like Southwest is about to phase in more traditional boarding groups.

That isn’t as much of a shock as the airline’s earlier announcements; the move to assigned seating would almost certainly require a shift to more traditional boarding groups as well. But it’s also a stark reminder that an airline that had, for years, proudly touted its independence from industry trends has instead opted to go along with them.

Southwest’s EVP Operations, Justin Jones, revealed the airline’s plans on an episode of the podcast Airlines Confidential. “We are going to more boarding groups,” Jones explained. “We will have nine boarding groups.” He then offered more details on why the airline had opted for nine groups total, saying that “[i]t allows us to break the groups up into smaller groups and to have ordinal boarding towards the back of the boarding process.”

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The podcast’s hosts raised the question of Southwest’s turn times and whether the shift to assigned seating might have an effect on that. Jones brought up the airline’s current preboarding process, which he explained involved a lot of travelers. “We do expect some of that volume to go down with assigned seating,” he said — which he believed would keep turn times relatively low.

As for when we might see Southwest’s new boarding group effect policy go into effect, The Points Guy reports that the airline is planning to implement it early next year.