At first, it was novel. Kind of cool. Less structured than the other buttoned-up airlines. It showed a fun side and was ideal for party trips like weekend jaunts to Vegas where you walked on board, spied a seat – or, ideally, a nice-looking seat mate – and plopped down right there.
But after a while, it wore thin, mainly because you had to try to be one of the first people on the flight to grab a boarding pass 24 hours ahead of time and then line up in rows and sometimes fend off line and rule breakers.
That will soon all be a thing of the past. Southwest Airlines has announced it will be doing away with its open-seating policy. It also stated – take a big sigh of relief here – that is is keeping its best-in-the-business free luggage policy.
The airline stated in a press release that it will increase seat space along with the elimination of open seating as it introduces assigned seats. This new policy has no official start date tho it is speculated it will happen sometime early next year.
Open seating was an interesting concept and made for some entertaining moments getting on board for flights. If I was fortunate enough to have an A or low B boarding spot, I would grab a seat of my choice and then watch as other passengers came down the isle.
I was always thinking of which one of them would wind up sitting next to me. If it was someone with kids, I would turn my head the other way, careful to avoid any welcoming “oh sit here!,” eye contact. If it was. a large or unsightly person, I would grab something out of the seat pocket in front of me and pretend to be reading the evacuation instructions.
Now, if a saw a nice looking girl coming down the aisle, I took a completely different approach. I would sit up straight, run my hands through my hair to try and straighten it up and look at her with a welcoming smile. I wanted her to sit next to me.
Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t but it always kept me alert during the boarding process.