In July of 2025, Southwest Airlines (SWA) made national news when it announced it was ending its open seating policy on January 27, 2026. The reason Southwest never assigned seats is because aircraft do not make money on the ground and not having passengers try to figure out which seat was theirs helped turn planes around as fast as possible. Instead, they created a very time-consuming pre-boarding process.
But once Wall Street got on its board and pushed the CEO to make changes to earn more money and appease business travelers, one of the first things to go was open seating.
A Fly Guy’s Cabin Crew Lounge is a very popular Facebook group with tens of thousands of airline workers, especially flight attendants, as members. There are also frequent travelers like myself who join to learn from their tips and see what is happening in the industry.
One post asked how Southwest’s new policy of assigned seating went after 55 years of open seating. FlyGuy wrote: “Very curious how today felt for Southwest ground staff and cabin crew, handling assigned seating for the first time after 50+ years of open seating.”
I was curious too. Here is what their members had to say:
James-B.
I operated the first flight out of Denver this morning. Went great, landed 10 minutes early!
Josh P.
FA here. Started this morning bright and early with three flights today. Everything went great. Still some kinks to work out and definitely a slower boarding process, but it is to be expected for the first day. Lots of people trying to alter their seats though, so it is going to take some finessing. Super excited about it and I like it so far!
Trent B.
I worked as lead on a 700 from DEN-LGA full flight! I was singing Highway to Hell in my head during the debacle boarding process 😂🤣
Cecily D.
I survived eight hours today as a gate agent. Fortunately, there were no irregular ops today. There are some hiccups that will have to be fixed, but overall it was not bad.
Leslie B.
They kept saying seating was open on the comms. It was not. 🤣 Took forever to load the plane compared to the regular cattle call. I liked having my seat!
Tony T.
It went well for the most part. There are minor kinks that need to be worked out to make things smoother. Boarded three full -800 flights tonight. Boarding is still slow like it was during the open seating era. Overall, I am glad we switched to assigned seating. Now we need WiFi that works.
Holly K.
I am not crew, but I did fly Southwest today, twice with a connection. It was a smoothly run ship. Everything went wonderfully. Both flights took off on time. Well, sort of. The second flight left late because the pilots chose to wait for 20 passengers coming from a late connection. I thought that was incredibly sweet and kind. Great flights today. Thank you!
Lisa S.
FA here. A few things to work out, but for the most part, great. Hey and guess what? Most of the pre-boarders, if there were any, all learned to walk!!!
Janie C.
’Bout time. It frees up thousands of wheelchairs for folks who actually need them.
As you can see, it was a mixed bag. Some flights went off without a hitch and others not so much. However, one thing is for sure. By getting rid of open seating, Southwest has ended the nasty trick many passengers used to get free early boarding and snag seats toward the front of the plane.
