After 53 years offering passengers the ability to choose their own seats, Southwest Airlines is ushering in a new era for its boarding process and will be assigning seats, as well as offering premium seating on all flights.
The Dallas-based carrier announced several new initiatives on Thursday, billing the redesigned boarding model as "enhancements to transform customer experience and improve financial performance," and stating in a press release that adding assigned seats and premium seating meets "evolving customer preferences."
Southwest president and CEO Bob Jordan previously hinted at the possible change back in April, saying at the time that the move to "assigned seating and offering premium legroom options will be a transformational change that cuts across almost all aspects of the company."
"Although our unique open seating model has been a part of Southwest Airlines since our inception, our thoughtful and extensive research makes it clear this is the right choice -- at the right time -- for our customers, our people, and our shareholders," said Jordan, who also serves as vice chairman of the board. "We have been building purposefully to this change as part of a comprehensive upgrade to the Southwest experience as we focus on Customer expectations -- and it will unlock new sources of revenue consistent with our laser focus on delivering improved financial performance."
The company has not yet said when the seating changes will go into effect, but plans to provide more details on the product designs, cabin layout and timing at its Investor Day in late September.
Any new cabin layout in this seating transformation will need to undergo approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Southwest conducted "robust operational testing" of both live and more than 8 million simulation-based boarding trials, citing research that showed 80% of its customers and 86% of potential customers prefer an assigned seat.
"When a customer elects to stop flying with Southwest and chooses a competitor, open seating is cited as the number one reason for the change," the company noted. "The airline is confident that these customer enhancements will meet expectations and not compromise the airline's operational efficiency."
The specific cabin layout details are still in design, but Southwest said it "expects roughly one-third of seats across the fleet to offer extended legroom, in line with that offered by industry peers on narrowbody aircraft."
In the last two years, Southwest's modernization efforts have included enhancements to other onboard offerings such as faster WiFi, in-seat power, larger overhead bins and more comfortable RECARO seats.
In addition to the seating changes, Southwest also announced it is officially adding 24-hour operation capabilities with overnight redeye flights "to further optimize the network and increase aircraft utilization."
Booking on initial routes is available starting Thursday, with the first overnight flights landing on Valentine's Day 2025 in five initial nonstop markets: Las Vegas to Baltimore and Orlando, Los Angeles to Baltimore and Nashville, and Phoenix to Baltimore.
Thursday's announcements came in tandem with the airline's second quarter financial results, which fell short of expectations, according to Jordan.
Southwest's RASM (Revenue per Available Seat Mile), which is a measure of total revenue from each seat flown per mile, regardless of whether it's empty or full, has decreased by 3.8% year-over-year.
The CEO said the airline is "taking urgent and deliberate steps to mitigate near-term revenue challenges and implement longer-term transformational initiatives" to help with financial top and bottom line growth.
"As we announced this morning, our implementation of assigned and premium seating is part of an ongoing and comprehensive upgrade to the Customer Experience, one that research shows Customers overwhelmingly prefer," he said.
