Southwest Airlines Bans Many Employees From Flying In Jumpseats

While the impact on the average passenger may be limited, Southwest Airlines is updating its employee travel policy in an interesting way, which is good news for some employees, and bad news for others.

Southwest Airlines updates jumpseat non-rev policy

One of the best perks of working in the airline industry is the travel benefits, including being able to non-rev (where you can fly for free, or at least at a huge discount, on a space available basis). While the intent is that you get a regular passenger seat if available, in some cases flights are full, and there are no seats for non-revs.

In those situations, Southwest has had a policy whereby non-revs can also fly in flight attendant jumpseats, which is where the working flight attendants also sit. Depending on the aircraft type, there are typically one to three additional jumpseats beyond the number of flight attendants, so it’s a great “last resort” option for hitching a ride on a flight.

Up until now, this has meant that someone like a reservations agent or a gate agent could non-rev in a flight attendant jumpseat. However, thanks to a policy update flagged by JonNYC, that’s no longer the case. With Southwest’s new rules, only pilots and flight attendants can fly in jumpseats, and not other “regular” employees.

The claim is that some people are “up in arms” about this change, given that it’s viewed as being rather anti-employee (well, aside from pilots and flight attendants).

It’s interesting how negative this could work out for some. For example, assume a flight has two empty seats, and four employees on the standby list. Let’s assume that the first two people on the list are flight attendants, while the other two people on the list are reservations agents.

The two flight attendants would typically then clear into passenger seats. Under the old policy, the two reservations agents would’ve had the opportunity to fly in the jumpseats, while now they no longer have that option, and the flight attendants also aren’t required to take the jumpseats to make space for the reservations agents. So the idea is that this new policy will make it much more difficult for non-crew employees to non-rev during busy periods.

Union hails this jumpseat policy change as a victory

TWU Local 556, which represents Southwest flight attendants, has been advocating for this change for some time. For example, several weeks ago, the union made its appeal to management:

“Crew ONLY Jumpseat – Now that Flight Attendants are required in Initial training to perform a physical standards test in addition to operating the door and all emergency evacuation protocols, we request that only Crew occupy the cabin jumpseat(s). Having non-Crew individuals sit in the cabin jumpseat can disrupt in-flight duties. Only other Flight Attendants understand the needs of working crews, and only Flight Attendants are properly trained and qualified in evacuation procedures each year. During an evacuation, having an individual on the jumpseat who is not fully trained and qualified to evacuate an aircraft is not the industry standard and does not provide the highest level of safety.”

The union describes this as a “critical issue” that it has “championed,” and that “not only does this change enhance safety, it also ensures those occupying the jumpseat have an understanding of the operational demands and work taking place in the galley space.” The union also notes that over 30% of flight attendants and pilots commute to work, so this should help them.

Flight attendants are happy about this change for two reasons:

• It gives them better odds of getting a ride on a flight, since there are more seating options that others are excluded from using
• While secondary, I also imagine they’re happy to have fewer people in their “space,” given how limited jumpseat and galley space is

So why would Southwest make a change like this now, that’s friendly toward flight attendants, but less positive for other employee groups? Southwest has undergone quite some changes in recent times, including the introduction of assigned seating, extra legroom seating, etc.

This has been most difficult for flight attendants to deal with, and there has been quite a bit of contention between management and flight attendants over the new policies, including regarding which overhead bins crews can use for their bags.

So it seems to me that this is intended as a bit of a goodwill gesture toward flight attendants, in hopes of them going along with some other policy changes. Still, it’s generally rare to see changes like this outside of a contract negotiation.

Airlines are all over the place in terms of which type of travelers they’ll allow in jumpseats. Southwest’s updated policy is more in line with the US airline industry standard than the old policy.

Bottom line

Southwest Airlines has updated its policy for employees non-reving in jumpseats. Previously, all employees could non-rev in flight attendant jumpseats, which was useful for situations where flights were sold out. However, with an updated policy, only flight attendants and pilots can fly in these seats. This is something that the flight attendant union has been advocating for, and they’ve now gotten their way.

What do you make of this Southwest jumpseat policy change?