Southwest Airlines is in the process of transforming its business model, under financial pressure from activist investors. The airline is changing just about everything, and has started charging for checked bags, adding basic economy, expiring travel credits, and more.
In July 2024, Southwest announced plans to introduce assigned and premium seating on flights, ending the carrier’s decades-old policy of having open seating. Tickets have been on sale under this new system since then, and today is perhaps the biggest day in Southwest’s transformation — the new policy is live, and open seating is no longer a thing.
In this post:
Southwest completely overhauls its seating policies
For flights as of today (January 27, 2026), Southwest Airlines has introduced both assigned seating and premium seating.
In recent months, Southwest has reconfigured aircraft with extra legroom seating, since obviously that couldn’t happen to the entire fleet overnight. That means customers may have already found themselves on planes with the new layout, even under the old seating model.
With the airline having now moved to a new seating model, all seats are being assigned, and roughly one-third of seats feature extra legroom. How have the layouts changed, as Southwest has reconfigured jets? There are three seating types:
- Extra legroom seats are those at the front of the cabin, with extra legroom, as well as at exit rows
- Preferred seats are those right behind the seats with extra legroom, and in front of the exit rows
- Standard seats are those behind the exit row
For example, below is a seat map of the updated Southwest 737-800 and 737 MAX 8 configuration.
Southwest’s extra legroom seats have 34″ of pitch, while standard seats have 31″ of pitch. Essentially, 737-800s and 737 MAX 8s have seen legroom reduced by 1″ for standard seats, in order to be able to add more legroom for other seats.
As you’d expect, Southwest Rapid Rewards A-List members and co-brand credit card members receive certain seating perks. The airline is also transforming its boarding process, with eight groups.
Southwest has been known for its unique open seating model for more than 50 years, but the airline believes that consumer preferences have evolved, with more customers taking longer flights, where a seat assignment is preferred.
Southwest claims that according to its research, 80% of Southwest customers and 86% of potential customers prefer an assigned seating concept. When a customer elects to stop flying with Southwest and chooses a competitor, open seating is cited as the number one reason for that.
With this change, Southwest believes it will broaden its appeal and attract more flying from its current and future customers. The company states that this is part of the overall modernization efforts at the airline, and complements plans to introduce larger overhead bins and in-seat power, along with free Wi-Fi for Rapid Rewards members.
Here’s how Southwest CEO Bob Jordan described these seating changes, back when they were first announced:
“Moving 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. We are excited to incorporate Customer and Employee feedback to design a unique experience that only Southwest can deliver. 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.”
Southwest assigned & premium seating pricing
With Southwest Airlines’ assigned and premium seating now live, what’s pricing like? To take a look, I pulled up a flight from Tampa (TPA) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL), which is one of the carrier’s shorter routes.
When booking the cheapest basic fare, seat assignments are only offered at check-in. Interestingly, you can’t even pay for a standard seat, but you can pay for a premium seat. The preferred seats range in cost from $23-26, while the extra legroom seats range in cost from $38-41.
I then pulled up a flight from Baltimore (BWI) to Los Angeles (LAX), which is one of the carrier’s longer routes.
When booking the cheaper choice fare (basic fares weren’t available), standard seat selection was included. The preferred seats range in cost from $36-41, while the extra legroom seats range in cost from $83-91.
As you can tell, this pricing is dynamic, and will vary over time, I imagine. The thing that initially stands out to me the most is how little the pricing differs within each section, and between aisle seats and middle seats. I imagine that will change over time, to reflect consumer behavior.
One other thing that stood out to me is that the whole Southwest booking process now feels a lot more like booking with an ultra low cost carrier. There are lots of upsell opportunities, questions about whether you’re sure you don’t want to upgrade your fare type, etc.
These Southwest changes were inevitable
I don’t think it should come as a surprise to anyone that Southwest Airlines is finally updating its onboard seating model.
For decades, Southwest was one of the most profitable US airlines, but the carrier lost its financial edge, as consumer travel patterns have shifted (for that matter, the industry has shifted more fundamentally). Southwest isn’t able to capitalize on the premium travel boom, plus the demand for long haul travel. The airline also hasn’t been able to generate as much ancillary revenue as competitors, which is a major source of profits for airlines.
So over the past couple of years, we’ve seen Southwest management essentially take an axe to the carrier’s business model and passenger experience. Now, as far as Southwest’s changes go, I actually think introducing assigned and extra legroom seating is among the more sensible updates we’re seeing. Assigned seating is much easier to monetize, and also less frustrating for many passengers, since they know exactly what they’re going to get.
As far as premium seating goes, that also makes perfect sense. In early 2024, Southwest unveiled new cabins, which are being installed on newly delivered aircraft. What’s interesting is that these seats are thinner than previous seats, yet Southwest claimed from the beginning that it wouldn’t increase the number of seats on planes. So it also makes sense that we’re seeing the introduction of seats with extra legroom.
Airlines aren’t charities (even if their balance sheets may at times suggest otherwise), so it makes sense that Southwest would try to monetize the extra space, and change the cabin layout a bit.
While we’ll see how all of this plays out, investors (even the non-activist ones) seem to be viewing all the changes positively as of late, with JPMorgan’s Jamie Baker recently double upgrading Southwest stock from overweight to underweight, arguing the airline might be reaching a turning point in terms of its financial performance.
Bottom line
For flights effective immediately, Southwest Airlines has introduced assigned seating on all flights, including the introduction of premium seating, with extra legroom. This evolution at Southwest was bound to happen, given the carrier’s lagging financial performance in recent years. I’d say the implementation of this new model is roughly what we were expecting, though we’ll see how it evolves over time, especially as it impacts the carrier’s bottom line.
What do you make of Southwest introducing assigned and premium seating?
Not sure why there needed to be two articles about this topic. SW is now just like all the other airlines. Seems that their main business will be from some of the points they fly to/from with no other suitable option or they go to/from some smaller airports.
It was bound to happen eventually, the race to the bottom as in every other industry. The last sentence of the quote says it all: "it will unlock new sources of revenue consistent with our laser focus on delivering improved financial performance.” Nothing about customers - it is all about revenue.
What made Southwest different wasn't just the boarding process (who remembers the numbered plastic cards they gave out at check-in?). It was that Herb...
It was bound to happen eventually, the race to the bottom as in every other industry. The last sentence of the quote says it all: "it will unlock new sources of revenue consistent with our laser focus on delivering improved financial performance.” Nothing about customers - it is all about revenue.
What made Southwest different wasn't just the boarding process (who remembers the numbered plastic cards they gave out at check-in?). It was that Herb said EMPLOYEES come first, because happy employees take better care of customers. Does any FA in the back on the big three look like they enjoy their job? Its a hostile work environment. If you treat your employees like crap, don't be surprised when they take it out on the customers. The SW team faces the same customer hassles, but somehow manages to be happy, kidding around, telling jokes and signing songs. For decades SW was the only airline to not penalize you $200 to change a flight. It took Covid to get the others to do that. And free bags. It was a no BS airline - you just bought a ticket and got on.
I'm sure the Companion Pass will be next on the block. We saved about $5,000 last year with ours. Maybe we'll get first class; I'd gladly pay an additional $50-100 per flight hour for more room.
Sigh...
This is a huge upgrade, given how stupid and unpleasant their boarding process has self-evidently been for decades. Race to the top, led by the customer experience on United and Delta. Unfortunately, Southwest still has a bad product so comes in #4 and there's no reason to fly them, but the gap with American (#3) is narrowing.
Not sure why people are considering this to be a good thing, and who even consented to letting Southwest be destroyed by Private Equity like this? The airlines rake in billions of dollars from nickle and diming us yet they claim they can't make a profit. At the end of the day, in order to satisfy Wall Street's unreasonable desire of "always grow profit" when breaking even is not simply enough, they always screw over...
Not sure why people are considering this to be a good thing, and who even consented to letting Southwest be destroyed by Private Equity like this? The airlines rake in billions of dollars from nickle and diming us yet they claim they can't make a profit. At the end of the day, in order to satisfy Wall Street's unreasonable desire of "always grow profit" when breaking even is not simply enough, they always screw over the customer first. I've said this many times over the years, but product always comes before profit!
As a small business owner I never put an investor's interest above those of my customers; in fact, I always adopt poison pill tactics to make sure what happened to Southwest can never happen to my business. Customer is always first!
Has Southwest or the FAA studied the potential impact of these changes on our healthcare system? Will it burden it or increase health insurance premiums for everybody?
there WERE plenty of people who never liked the FORMER WN model and Elliott helped WN to see how much money they were leaving on the table.
AA just announced its earnings for 2025 and they were barely profitable for the year. B6 continues to lose money.
WN has significant opportunity to poach AA passengers while other carriers (who know which one) will continue to benefit from B6' inability to profitably operate.
The US airline...
there WERE plenty of people who never liked the FORMER WN model and Elliott helped WN to see how much money they were leaving on the table.
AA just announced its earnings for 2025 and they were barely profitable for the year. B6 continues to lose money.
WN has significant opportunity to poach AA passengers while other carriers (who know which one) will continue to benefit from B6' inability to profitably operate.
The US airline industry is at an inflection point that has been pushed back because of covid.
For the first time in at least a decade, WN is in the position to compete to take passengers from other airlines.
and WN will announce even more initiatives to become more like the big 3.
For premium customers, block the middle seat or install a proper domestic first class seat. Charge whatever price that makes financial sense.
I don’t know why this isn’t common/allowed other than it probably screws up demand forecasts if one passenger is essentially occupying two seats as it just fragments the market even more
Southwest completley blew it. What a joke. No two row business class section. All rhat money wasted on three per row for some exta legroom, but having someone stuck in the middle.
For premium customers, block the middle seat or install a proper domestic business class seat.
Charge whatever price that makes financial sense.
Umm, or just install a legitimate 2-2 recliner domestic First for a few rows up front, like even Spirit has…
Do Israelis get Group 0? Priority boarding was promised to us 3000 years ago. If Southwest did not do this, they are antisemites.
This has nothing to do with any of that. Please stop.
Sat next to an Aussie on a bus back to the terminal today. Her first question was she heard that there was a US carrier that had open seating. She couldn't believe an airline would do that. She enjoyed the WN horror stories of people gaming the system.
Ohio-native spends his time Down Under… feels like the premise of a made-for-TV movie.
Great to see. Only ridden Southwest twice (1999 and 2013) and swore I'd never do it again, as the lack of assigned seating caused so many problems (a fist fight over seats resulting in arrest, delaying all of us, on the first flight; a kid taking my seat mid-flight and asking me to relocate to the back, on the other).
Now, may actually consider them again. Especially if their points ever become worth something with reputable longhaul carriers in the future.
And just like that incidents of Jetway Jesus have dropped by 95%.
The irony is that many of those ole folks and scammers probably aren’t even aware of the changes, so they’re gonna show up, think everything is like it was in the past, then become disappointed when they end up in the back of the aircraft in a middle seat. (‘But I want the front aisle!’) Too bad so sad.
One awaits Tim’s analysis with interest.
The REAL Aero (and not the fake Aero) speaks. Sadly, someone has been using your handle and making false flag comments. Some blogs require a log-in to comment. Perhaps, Ben might do the same to filter out such activity.
Yes, Jack, we know. You, Aero, Eskimo, myself, and others. It’s not the end of the world. Try to enjoy what you still can. (And, no, I’m not creating an account either; I like relative anonymity.)