Southwest Plans To Have Nine Boarding Groups, End “Cattle Call”

We know that just about everything at Southwest Airlines is changing. In a bid to improve profitability, initially the airline was just going to introduce assigned and extra legroom seating.

But in the meantime, they’re just ripping off the band-aid, and have decided to be like everyone else. This includes charging for checked bags, introducing basic economy, adding restrictions on flight credits, and devaluing Rapid Rewards points, among other things.

With the airline moving from its open seating policy to its assigned seating policy, we also know that the boarding process will change, and Southwest will no longer have its unique “cattle call” boarding, as it’s often jokingly referred to. We now have some more details about what this will look like.

How Southwest plans to overhaul boarding process

Justin Jones, Southwest’s EVP of Operations, was on this week’s Airlines Confidential podcast, hosted by Scott McCartney (which is excellent, and worth listening to). During the podcast, he was asked about how Southwest plans to change its boarding process as it moves to assigned seating.

Even though Southwest hasn’t made a formal announcement about this yet, Jones answered that question in detail:

• Southwest plans to introduce nine(!!!) different boarding groups, which is about as many boarding groups as you’ll find on any airline
• Southwest executives believe that breaking up boarding into so many groups will help keep boarding orderly, so that smaller chunks of passengers can board at a time
• While the exact breakdown of the boarding groups hasn’t been announced, the idea is that elite members, those in priority seats, and those who pay extra for priority boarding, will board first, and then the plane will generally board from back to front
• Southwest will stop having people line up to board early (as is currently the case), both due to the number of boarding groups, and to create a more consistent and industry standard experience, since many airports have shared gate spaces

I don’t think there’s anything terribly surprising about these plans, perhaps other than the sheer volume of boarding groups. Personally, I think so many boarding groups does more harm than good, because people will crowd the gate no matter what, and this will create a bottleneck of people who aren’t yet eligible to board.

Southwest thinks assigned seating will reduce turn times

Southwest of course has a huge focus on efficiency and quick turn times, and the airline is actively trying to reduce turn times, in order to essentially grow its schedule without actually needing to have more planes.

So, how will the switch from the old boarding policy to the new boarding policy impact turn times? According to Jones, every scenario that the airline has run shows a reduction in boarding time of five to six minutes. In particular, Jones highlights two points:

• Southwest is notorious for having a lot of pre-boarders in wheelchairs, and the airline believes the number of pre-boards will go down, when there’s no longer an incentive in terms of being able to pick your seat
• Under the current system, some passengers board and walk to the back of the plane in hopes of finding a window or aisle seat, only to find there are none, and then walk “upstream” to try to sit further up

Jones admits that he’s concerned about the impact that Southwest’s new checked bag policy will have on turn times, since once Southwest charges for checked bags, odds are that there will be a lot more gate checked bags, which will complicate turns.

Still, I can’t help but point out how funny some quotes are from senior airline executives. Jones seems like an honest guy who is sharing his real opinion, and I think he’s probably right about assigned seating being more efficient.

But what’s funny is that for years, Southwest executives have insisted that a key benefit of open seating is that it makes turns quicker. I can’t count the number of times we’ve heard Southwest folks claim that. Now, suddenly, it’s the opposite — assigning seats will speed up the boarding process by five to six minutes.

It’s hardly the only area where Southwest has done an about-face. In September 2024, Southwest executives insisted that eliminating free checked bags wasn’t even under consideration. They claimed to have done the math, stating that they’d gain around $1-1.5 billion from charging for bags, but would lose $1.8 billion of market share.

Unsurprisingly, the airline has backtracked on that, with Southwest CEO (and at this point, Elliott puppet) Bob Jordan claiming “in contrast to our previous analysis, actual customer booking behavior through our new booking channels such as metasearch, did not show that we are getting the same benefit from our bundled offering with free bags, which has led us to update the assumptions.”

It’s funny how so many of these folks can make completely conflicting claims with such confidence, only to then claim they’ve come to a completely different conclusion, once it suits their narrative.

Bottom line

When Southwest Airlines moves to assigned seating, the airline will also completely overhaul its boarding process. The airline plans to have nine different boarding groups, and no longer have passengers line up in advance.

The head of operations at the airline claims that this will speed up boarding by five to six minutes, quite a contrast to past claims by Southwest executives, who suggested the open seating policy contributed to faster boarding.

What do you make of Southwest’s boarding process updates?