"You Are Now Free To Turn In Your Cowbells?"
In this crazy world,
it's somewhat reassuring to have some things that are certain. The
traffic light will always turn yellow as you're approaching the
intersection. That tailwind you were counting on will evaporate
somewhere over Nebraska. And there will never, ever be assigned
seating on a Southwest Airlines flight.
Well, perhaps we were all a bit quick on that last one. On
Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the airline has been
looking into the idea; in fact, the airline has spent $5 million on
an enhanced reservation system, as part of an internal program to
see if it could implement assigned seating without significant
impact on the airline's operations. At the forefront of those
considerations is how assigned seating would impact the carrier's
celebrated quick turnaround times.
Officials at the nation's largest low-cost airline stated
adamantly that Southwest has not decided to adopt assigned seats --
but acknowledged it is exploring all options, after complaints
about the current system from passengers.
"In order to look at the possibility as to will this work for
Southwest Airlines, we needed to bump up the reservation system a
little bit," Southwest spokeswoman Beth Hardin said. "We're very
much in the investigative mode as of now."
Throughout its 35-year history, Southwest has never had assigned
seats -- relying instead on a first-come, first-served system that
is referred to by Southwest fans and detractors alike as the
"cattle-call." If passengers want a preferred window or aisle seat,
they'd best show up early (or, recently, check in online).
That system -- though lacking a certain elegance and decorum --
has been touted by Southwest executives as saving money on printing
boarding passes. The lack of assigned seating also allows Southwest
to turn its planes in record time, in part because it (in theory)
decreases dawdling in the aisle, and it encourages passengers to
show up early -- and ontime -- for their flight.
Some passengers, however, have never liked the open-seating
policy... especially business travelers, some of whom say they'll
go out of their way to avoid flying Southwest for that reason
alone, lower fares be darned.
"I'm willing to pay for a reserved seat," construction
consultant Robert Salmon told the Post. "I don't consider
[Southwest] because they don't reserve seats."
Southwest has also seen other LCCs, such as JetBlue and AirTran,
encroach on its market share... and those carriers do offer
assigned seats.
"Southwest has to [implement assigned seating] to stay
competitive," said airline consultant Mike Boyd, of the
Denver-based Boyd Group. "They're going to be pushed out of markets
if they don't."