Southwest Airlines Now Has Eight Boarding Groups, Ends “Cattle Call”

We know that just about everything at Southwest Airlines is changing. One of the biggest updates is that we’re seeing the Dallas-based airline introduce assigned and extra legroom seating, and that policy is live for flights as of today (January 27, 2026).

With the airline moving from its open seating policy to its assigned seating policy, the airline is also updating its boarding process effective immediately, and Southwest will no longer have its unique “cattle call” boarding, as it’s often jokingly referred to. Let’s go over the details of Southwest’s new boarding system.

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How Southwest has overhauled its boarding process

Southwest Airlines has introduced a new boarding process for flights effective immediately, coinciding with the introduction of assigned and extra legroom seating.

The airline has a new group-based boarding process, with the goal of maintaining an efficient and orderly boarding process, while also optimizing it to reflect the new seating options.

Southwest has eight different boarding groups, with the boarding group you’re in determined based on the fare type purchased, the seat assigned, and the elite status or credit card membership of a passenger. Here’s how it works:

• Group 1-2 includes Choice Extra passengers, passengers who purchase an upgrade to an extra legroom seat with any fare bundle, A-List Preferred members, and A-List members who upgrade to an extra legroom seat
• Group 3-5 includes Choice Preferred passengers, and A-List members who are seated in a preferred or standard seat
• Rapid Rewards cardmembers board with Group 5, if they are not assigned an earlier boarding position based on seat type, fare type, or status
• Group 6-8 include Choice and Basic passengers, with Basic passengers being last to board

Passengers are also able to purchase priority boarding 24 hours prior to departure, in order to be among the first to board. In the past, I’ve written more about elite status and credit card perks in light of all the changes at the airline.

Southwest thinks assigned seating will reduce turn times

Several months back, Justin Jones, Southwest’s EVP of Operations, was on the Airlines Confidential podcast, hosted by Scott McCartney (which is excellent, and worth listening to). During that interview, he made some interesting comments about the impact the new boarding process will have on efficiency.

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 acquire more planes.

So, how is Southwest’s switch from the old boarding policy to the new boarding policy anticipated to 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 old 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 admitted that he was concerned about the impact that Southwest’s new checked bag policy would have on turn times, given that this no doubt leads to an increase in gate checked bags, complicating short turns.

Still, I can’t help but point out how contradictory 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 had 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 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 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 incredible 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

Effective immediately, Southwest Airlines has completely overhauled its boarding process. The airline now has eight different boarding groups, and no longer has passengers line up in advance. The boarding group that passengers belong to varies based on the fare or seating type purchased, as well as elite status or credit card membership.

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