![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/southwest_fail.jpg\")
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WaPo<\/a>: Southwest Airlines eliminating open seating starting in 2025<\/span><\/p>\n In the grand spectrum of things, Southwest Airlines getting rid of open seating doesn\u2019t really impact my life that much.\u00a0 I don\u2019t fly enough anymore to really be affected by this, because my life is too hectic at this juncture in my life and when it\u2019s time for a family trip, driving is more economical and logical albeit more time consuming, but it\u2019s better than dropping $2,100 on a trip to like Orlando.<\/span><\/p>\n But Southwest was always a company that I had some admiration for, because their general people-first modus operandi was always refreshing in the vast ocean of big businesses that existed solely to part dollars from the hands of the people and put them into the pockets of soulless shitheads known as investors and other finance-ey words used to describe old white people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And it\u2019s not like they were starving by any stretch of the imagination, even during some of the most brutal recessions and stretches of financial wastelands, SWA was one of the few airlines that continually turned profits, mostly on account of their generally friendly business practices.<\/span><\/p>\n Reasonable fares, convenient routes, free checked bags, and free change policies; there was a lot to like about SWA, but if there was ever one thing that conversely blew the minds off of the dull-watted, and to some probably perceived as a deterrent and turn-off, was the open-seating policy that probably defeated more people than the internet itself.<\/span><\/p>\n Personally, it was, and has never been an issue for me, because I have a brain.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that hard to queue up in lines in little chunks of five behind clearly marked totems, and it takes either a little bit of upfront discipline or the willingness to pay a little extra to get Group A boarding, and seeing as how the vast majority of my travels on SWA have usually been by myself, I\u2019ve almost always been able to grab an errant single aisle or window seat closer to the front of the aircraft, meaning I can get the fuck off sooner rather than later being wedged into the back of the aircraft and needing an extra 20 minutes just to deplane.<\/span><\/p>\n But if I had to guess, in spite of being their policy for over the last 50 years, SWA has simply had enough of the bullshit of dealing with passengers who just haven\u2019t gotten it after a half century, passengers who conduct themselves like entitled spoiled assholes on the aircraft, and having to deal with passengers who they have to reimburse or give free second seats to because they\u2019re the sizes of Pontiac Azteks.<\/span><\/p>\n Like the vast majority of things in the world that end up being declared ruined, there\u2019s nobody really to blame, except people.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure, at the root of it, I want to accuse some managerial change at the higher rungs of the ladders at SWA, where some bean counters have identified a vast field of earning opportunities to be had by ditching open seating, and that\u2019s probably not inaccurate, but the company had resisted many opportunities to switch in previous decades, but in this day and age, the bullshit of passengers has probably grown too much, their workforce has grown flakier and full of impatient younger heads, and enough is enough and this is where we\u2019re headed.<\/span><\/p>\n The reality is that SWA has probably lost out on millions over the last few decades, by trying to be The People\u2019s™ airline, with their friendly policies and acceptance and inclusion, and thanks to mounting passenger bullshit, they\u2019ve probably just hit a philosophical wall of why they should be handicapping their earning capabilities being nice to a ton of assholes, when absolutely nobody else is doing it?<\/span><\/p>\n When the day is over, as I said, it doesn\u2019t impact me a whole hell of a lot, but I would be curious to see what lies in the future for Southwest.\u00a0 I don\u2019t imagine the loss of open-seating is really going to impact the airline as much as many outlets on the internet make it sound like it\u2019s going to, but for those people who were married to the concept, and are going to revolt, or at least no longer prioritize them because they\u2019re basically transforming into an \u201cordinary\u201d airline on the level of United or American or JetBlue, SWA is just going to likely blend into the pack, except, barring a change, more handicapped by virtue of not partnering up with travel aggregators like Google, Kayak, Travelocity and Expedia.<\/span><\/p>\n Their free baggage and lack of change fees might be enough to retain some customers, and I\u2019m really curious to know what\u2019s going to become of the large passenger policy once seats become assigned, and big people won\u2019t be able to just lumber to the gate and assume an empty seat will be available next to theirs, but in the game of airline thrones, the most important thing is solely going to hinge on if as long as SWA can remain competitive with fares.<\/span><\/p>\n Regardless, I still lament over the days before SWA engulfed AirTran.\u00a0 Not a travel day goes by where I don\u2019t miss AirTran and the time where I could get sub-$200 RT fares to visit my family and eastern-based friends, and then cash in my credits to trips to Las Vegas or Seattle.\u00a0 After the merger, all those routes have nearly doubled in cost, and despite my general positive opinion of their brand, I was not happy about it.<\/span><\/p>\n Things change, this is where we\u2019re headed, and I hope SWA is ready to slide into the middle of the pack.\u00a0 But as long as they don\u2019t have to see any further videos and articles about their passengers being douchebag pricks on the internet, they probably are happy to take that deal in the long game.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WaPo: Southwest Airlines eliminating open seating starting in 2025 In the grand spectrum of things, Southwest Airlines getting rid of open seating doesn\u2019t really impact my life that much.\u00a0 I don\u2019t fly enough anymore to really be affected by this, because my life is too hectic at this juncture in my life and when it\u2019s … Continue reading I hope Southwest is ready to be mediocre<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[117,79,45,120,83,52,156,65,190],"class_list":["post-50075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-airports","tag-cashmoney","tag-fail","tag-fat-people","tag-observations","tag-owned","tag-social-media","tag-travel","tag-white-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50077,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50075\/revisions\/50077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}