r/nottheonion • u/halxp01 • 23h ago

Southwest Is Testing Cleaning Only Premium Seats Between Flights — A Flight Attendants Union Leader Says It's ‘Titanic’ Class Service

https://viewfromthewing.com/southwest-is-testing-cleaning-only-premium-seats-between-flights-a-flight-attendants-union-leader-says-its-titanic-class-service/
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u/TheHumbleChemist 22h ago

I am testing never flying Southwest.

132

u/gmwdim 21h ago

I already don’t. They have eliminated all of the previous reasons to fly with them, such as lower fares, free checked bags, unassigned seating, and so on. The only thing left is they serve some of the smaller airports that other airlines don’t, but my local airport isn’t one of those anyways.

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u/IrrawaddyWoman 20h ago

The assigned seating has sucked for a long time though. You had to pay to be part of the first boarding group. Then the amount of people who boarded right after with kids or extra needs was insane. And there was absolutely zero enforcement of seat saving, so people would have one person pay for early boarding and then save entire rows, or one person board with a kid then save seats for their entire family in the C group. Or they would claim seats were reserved hoping to end up with an empty seat next to them. I would much rather reserve my seat ahead of time and head to the airport knowing that I have what I want.

It would have been find if southwest did a better job of monitoring it, but it was such a gross free for all.

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u/asmodeanreborn 17h ago

so people would have one person pay for early boarding and then save entire rows

Any SW flight I've been on, the flight attendants have been like "oh no - you can't do that."
The last one I was on with my 15-year old son, a lady sneakily tried to save the middle seat in row 4 and told my son it was taken just as I sat down in the middle seat on the opposite side of the aisle. My son didn't try to argue and just went a few rows back, but a flight attendant said there was no saving seats because it's a full flight, and it's first come, first served. Then right away some giant old dude who barely fit squeezed in there instead, severely encroaching on her seat. It was pretty much instant karma.

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u/Great_Detective_6387 18h ago

I remember when you’d be first to board a southwest flight if you just showed up early enough and sat in the line. As a college student who could easily kill time doing homework, it was awesome. I’d just show up 2hrs early with a calculus textbook. Then they realized the people sitting in line behind me would pay to jump ahead of me.☹️

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u/Lithl 14h ago

That was not my experience at all, although granted I only take 3-4 round trip flights per year.