So I check in online for my Southwest flight to Phoenix for Christmas. Normally they assign you one of three groups (A, B or C) and then you get to the airport and board with your group, grabbing any open seat. It’s sort of chaotic but it seems to work well enough. Assigned seats would be more convenient for me the flier, but Southwest has always taken the position that their barely controlled bedlam is more efficient for them and keeps ticket prices down. Fine.
So today when I check in, instead of getting a group letter, I get a number. I am Number 27, presumably meaning I am supposed to be exactly the 27th person to board the airplane. Which means that they expect the entire plane, I guess, to board in some predetermined sequence. This sounds to me like the sort of system that would be invented by somebody who has never dealt with other people ever. Like, are they seriously thinking that it’s going to be efficient to try and get 300 random yahoos to line up in numerical order? This is going to be chaos. The guys at Western Bagel can’t even manage to serve six bagel customers in numerical order without it turning into pandemonium (“Now serving number 18! 18! 19! 20! What? You’re 17?”), and now we’re experimenting with this? During Christmas?
Relax, they call 1-10, 1-20, 1-30, etc. They’re going to a method more like the other airlines that have assigned seats, except that you still don’t have assigned seats.
They were doing this at Thanksgiving this year too. It caught me off guard as well. I was all happy, jockying for position in the stalls (they still have the A, B, C chutes up) and then realized the reason I was all alone at the front of the A stall was because they changed the process.
They did this the last time I flew, Christmas '01 ( yeah that was fun ). It was kind of fun not giving an eff about getting into line cause I got there early and got into the 1-20, but when my numbers were called up I got screwed because they decided to search my wheelchair-bound mother who I was with ( for the Second Time! Me? Who carried a small computer that I was giving as a gift in my carry-on? Not searched once.) and we got on during the second call. Gotta love our security.
I’m not fond of the changes. The whole appeal of Southwest was cheap fares, and i always felt getting there earlier entitled you to a better seat. What could be more democratic than that?
Apparently though all those east-coasters bitch and moan that even though they’re saving 1/2 price that they’d rather have assigned seating. The whole window-seat vs. isle-seat thing.
However, the worst seating in Southwest is that damn partition seating, with your back to the cockpit facing the tail. Ugh, that is pretty bad. Not bad enough, however, to make me fly any other carrier, though.
You’ve gotta be pretty simple to not understand SW’s boarding system. Letters and numbers–get it? My preference is actually to board in group B (if the flight is full) so that I can base who I sit next to according to hotness, weight, and hygeine.
I used to like them, but they’ve finally gotten to me. I hate the chattel menality they have, I hate their boarding procedures, I hate the little “oh, we’re so flippant and sarcastic” speeches they give. I even hate the color scheme.
I’ll fly them if it saves me TONS of money, but I’d prefer a nicer airline.
Best trick for dealing with Southwest Airlines, long lines and holidays: a single crutch.
I had my first psuedo-gout attack in my big toe a couple of days before a flight a few years back (this feels like your toe joint has been split by a ball peen hammer everytime you take a step and also swells up nice). Had to use a crutch to get around. On the flight from Dallas to LAX: front of the line, priority seating, etc.
On the flight back, LAX was a mad house. Long lines. I thought I wasn’t going to get on in time. Foot was fine by this time, but I still had the crutch. Get in line and wait. A Southwest attendant came out to me and said she’d take me forward for priority seating, etc. I explained I’m fine now, just still have the crutch.
When I actually got to the counter, they gave me a priority pass for the other stops on my flight and a handful of drink tickets. Apparently a lot of people in front of me remarked that they were surprised by my honesty (which is sort of sad).
But since I did barely make the flight, screw honesty. Crutch or cane instead of waiting in line!
I flew Southwest a long time ago, and it felt like I was on a bus. They were really rude as well, so I’ve never flown them again. Plus, they’re one of the forced behind putting the kabosh on high speed rail routes in California and Texas.
I normally take Jetblue, and they can manage both cheap and things like assigned seating. But this year, I’m giving Virgin America a try.
Spending any significant time in airports makes a convincing argument that the majority of people on the planet are idiots.
For most airlines, you’d think the “group 1 now boarding” concept isn’t hard to grasp. And yet you’ll have people with group 4 and 5 tickets rush up, hover and block the area to the point where people with the right tickets can’t get through. Then you try to get on the plane, and people block the aisles while they futz with their luggage, completely unaware that 100 people are still trying to get through.
Southwest seems to attract the dumbest of the dumb. I’ve seen people camp out on the floor over an hour in advance of boarding in order to make sure they’re near the front of their groups – for flights less than an hour long. What’s the point? And once they start lining up, it starts a snowball effect that eventually forces 75 people to wait uncomfortably until boarding begins. I now avoid SW like the plague.
I generally fly American for most of my short-range travel, and Jet Blue to NYC. Jet Blue’s service isn’t awesome, but it’s cheap, they’ve got some extra legroom and IMO Directv service is one of the greatest things to happen to flying in the last 20 years.
Almost all of my flying these days is between Denver and Chicago. I primarily fly Frontier. My experience has been alomst always good with them.
I hate the freaking cattle call SW boarding thing.
I liked the direct tv thing, but now that I bought a PSP I never watch it.
