Southwest Airlines moves to assigned seats, adds premium cabin with more legroom, redeye flights

After 53 years providing passengers the power to decide on their very own seats, Southwest Airways is ushering in a brand new period for its boarding course of and will probably be assigning seats, in addition to providing premium seating on all flights.

Southwest strikes to assigned seats after 53 years of open seating

The Dallas-based provider introduced a number of new initiatives on Thursday, billing the redesigned boarding mannequin as “enhancements to rework buyer expertise and enhance monetary efficiency,” and stating in a press launch that including assigned seats and premium seating meets “evolving buyer preferences.”

Southwest president and CEO Bob Jordan beforehand hinted on the doable change again in April, saying on the time that the transfer to “assigned seating and providing premium legroom choices will probably be a transformational change that cuts throughout nearly all features of the corporate.”

“Though our distinctive open seating mannequin has been part of Southwest Airways since our inception, our considerate and intensive analysis makes it clear that is the fitting selection — on the proper time — for our clients, our individuals, and our shareholders,” stated Jordan, who additionally serves as vice chairman of the board. “We now have been constructing purposefully to this modification as a part of a complete improve to the Southwest expertise as we give attention to Buyer expectations — and it’ll unlock new sources of income per our laser give attention to delivering improved monetary efficiency.”

The corporate has not but stated when the seating modifications will go into impact, however plans to supply extra particulars on the product designs, cabin format and timing at its Investor Day in late September.

Any new cabin format on this seating transformation might want to bear approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Southwest performed “strong operational testing” of each reside and greater than 8 million simulation-based boarding trials, citing analysis that confirmed 80% of its clients and 86% of potential clients choose an assigned seat.

“When a buyer elects to cease flying with Southwest and chooses a competitor, open seating is cited because the primary motive for the change,” the corporate famous. “The airline is assured that these buyer enhancements will meet expectations and never compromise the airline’s operational effectivity.”

Southwest Airways provides premium, prolonged legroom cabin

The precise cabin format particulars are nonetheless in design, however Southwest stated it “expects roughly one-third of seats throughout the fleet to supply prolonged legroom, in keeping with that provided by business friends on narrowbody plane.”

Within the final two years, Southwest’s modernization efforts have included enhancements to different onboard choices corresponding to quicker WiFi, in-seat energy, bigger overhead bins and extra comfy RECARO seats.

Southwest Airways provides redeye flights

Along with the seating modifications, Southwest additionally introduced it’s formally including 24-hour operation capabilities with in a single day redeye flights “to additional optimize the community and improve plane utilization.”

Reserving on preliminary routes is accessible beginning Thursday, with the primary in a single day flights touchdown on Valentine’s Day 2025 in 5 preliminary nonstop markets: Las Vegas to Baltimore and Orlando, Los Angeles to Baltimore and Nashville, and Phoenix to Baltimore.

Southwest Airways second quarter monetary outcomes

Thursday’s bulletins got here in tandem with the airline’s second quarter monetary outcomes, which fell wanting expectations, based on Jordan.

Southwest’s RASM (Income per Obtainable Seat Mile), which is a measure of complete income from every seat flown per mile, no matter whether or not it is empty or full, has decreased by 3.8% year-over-year.

The CEO stated the airline is “taking pressing and deliberate steps to mitigate near-term income challenges and implement longer-term transformational initiatives” to assist with monetary high and backside line development.

“As we introduced this morning, our implementation of assigned and premium seating is a part of an ongoing and complete improve to the Buyer Expertise, one which analysis exhibits Clients overwhelmingly choose,” he stated.