There’s one main airline within the U.S. with no assigned seats: Southwest Airlines. Instead, you line up on the gate in ascending order of boarding project, then step onto the aircraft and declare your most well-liked obtainable seat in a first-come,-first-to-pick association. There are as much as 60 folks in every boarding group.
The Southwest boarding course of is mostly not as unhealthy as it could sound. Still, on the very least, it is an uncommon strategy that may provoke nervousness for households and others who cannot affirm seats collectively prematurely.
For years, Southwest has allowed time for household boarding (for these with youngsters 6 and below) between its A and B boarding teams in an effort to make sure mother and father and little children can sit collectively. This helps forestall a state of affairs the place center seats are the one choices left for youngsters towards the latter finish of the boarding course of.
Now, Southwest is experimenting with a dramatic shift within the household boarding course of.
Based on a number of experiences — together with my very own boarding expertise at Dallas Love Field (DAL) in late 2022 — some Southwest flight boarding bulletins are using an expanded household boarding age vary that features youngsters all the way in which as much as 13 years outdated.
That wasn’t the one boarding change I noticed on my Southwest Airlines flight in late 2022. The youngest flyers as much as age 6 have been invited to board throughout a portion of the preboarding course of, which occurred earlier than the numbered boarding assignments have been known as.
Southwest Airlines didn’t affirm this potential check or any alteration to the household boarding course of to TPG. Instead, the corporate states that the boarding coverage stays unchanged to incorporate youngsters 6 and below between the A and B boarding teams, in response to an organization spokesperson.
The present printed coverage leaves mother and father with children as younger as 7 in a worrying place. With youngsters too outdated for household boarding, these households must hope they’ll examine in quick sufficient to safe an excellent boarding place. The options: They may buy the airline’s EarlyBird Check-In, which begins at $15 per particular person, or they may pay for A1-A15 assured early boarding positions which promote for $30-$60 every, when obtainable.
Related: Best bank cards for Southwest flyers
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While it didn’t affirm trials of any expanded eligible household boarding age vary, the airline has beforehand shared that it’s conducting a focused trial of early boarding for youngsters 6 and below.
Getting that youngest age vary on first earlier than normal boarding is logical as a result of that group possible has automotive seats and strollers; thus, they’re slower to get on board. In the Atlanta trial, households taking part in that early boarding should choose seats behind the exit row. This may alleviate some issues about younger households getting early entry to the widely most well-liked first few rows when there are different flyers who paid further to be increased within the boarding order.
Only time will inform if extra Southwest Airlines flights board with the expanded household boarding age ranges. However, it is value observing that this is able to be a straightforward manner for the airline to maintain households with children ages 13 or youthful seated collectively with out extra charges — one thing a Department of Transportation discover despatched in June 2022 instructed airways to do.
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