Open seating at Southwest Airlines is tweaked

DALLAS — Southwest Airlines' open-seating policy is here to stay. It's the long wait in line that's going.

"That's right, I'll say it," Gary Kelly, the airline's chief executive said in a news conference Wednesday. "No more cattle call."

Kelly said last month's tests in San Antonio were a "dress rehearsal" for the new boarding system, which will roll out nationwide in early November.

While customers won't be assigned a seat, they will be assigned a place in line, leaving them the flexibility to grab a bite or work on their laptop in the gate area.

"Customers like choosing their seats. They don't like standing in line," Kelly said. "Our goal is to give customers back what they value most, which is time."

For years, company officials said unassigned seats allowed them to maintain the quick turn times that made Southwest the industry's most efficient airline.

But competitors have gotten leaner and better able to compete with Southwest's low operating costs, while also offering assigned seats and flashy inflight entertainment.

In the face of that competition, analysts have said Southwest would have to make changes to avoid losing market share.

Southwest, which had been considering switching to assigned seats to match up with traditional airlines, was surprised by the results: Most customers were either in favor of open seating or neutral on the subject.

And among those who preferred assigned seats, Kelly said, "There was no compelling evidence that offering it would move the needle" in terms of convincing more fliers to chose Southwest.

Critics of open boarding resent having to line up in groups to board and the uncertainty of knowing where they'd sit. And while Southwest continues to rely mostly on short-haul trips, its customers' average trip length is growing as it expands its national network of 3,300 daily flights, making the seat issue more important.

For fans of open seating — especially corporate customers who often make last-minute travel plans — the policy meant they could easily get the seat of their choice by checking in 24 hours in advance.

It was considered an example of the airline's egalitarian attitude — eschewing dividing travelers into "elite" and "nonelite."

Along with its new boarding process, Southwest is considering upgrades of up to $50,000 on each of its 400 gates, taking cues from what it has in place in San Antonio.