When Does the New Southwest Airlines Boarding Process Start?

If you haven’t flown with Southwest Airlines in a year or so, you might be surprised to know that a LOT has changed with the airline and its policies. First, the airline no longer offers two free checked bags and now charges for them.

However, the biggest change is that Southwest is getting rid of its open boarding policy and adopting a new process, which will include seat assignments and group boarding. This new process will officially go into effect on January 27th. Now, we’re going to break down this new boarding process for you.

Let’s outline all these new changes, so you’ll be ready for your next Southwest flight.

Seating and Boarding

If you booked a Southwest flight before January 27th, you didn’t have the option to select a seat, and you weren’t assigned a seat when you checked in with the airline for your flight. On January 27th, every passenger flying with Southwest will have an assigned seat. Not only that, but there will be three classes of seats available (depending on which fare you book):

Extra Legroom is the priciest fare and gives you seats with extra legroom (for example, exit rows). These seats are in the forward part of the plane. Those who purchase Extra Legroom Seats will also be boarding first in groups 1 and 2.
Preferred is the second priciest fare. These passengers will be seated in the forward and middle parts of the plane and will be assigned boarding groups 3 through 5.
Standard is the cheapest fare. These seats will be assigned from what is left after the first two fares have their seat assignments. This might often be a middle seat. Standard fare gets assigned boarding groups 6 through 8, meaning this group boards last.

This also means that the way you board a plane will change. Currently, you get in line in the boarding area according to your boarding number, and the flight boards in that order. You can also choose whatever seat you want. That’s going away. Instead, on January 27th, you will board according to whichever group you were assigned to. Boarding groups will be announced at the gate, plus you’ll be able to see what groups are boarding on digital displays.

Southwest Credit Card and Elite Status

If you have a Southwest credit card, not only do you get one free checked bag, but you also get guaranteed to be assigned boarding group 5.

If you have Elite Status, you’ll get some seating perks, too:

A-List Preferred gets assigned Extra Legroom seats
A-List gets a free Preferred Seat selection

If you’ve earned Elite Status with Southwest, it will pay off with better seats and earlier boarding groups.

Customer of Size

Southwest is also changing its policy for passengers who may require more than one seat. Currently, passengers who may require more than one seat do not have to purchase an additional seat (although Southwest still recommends it). Instead, the additional seat is provided to those passengers who need it for free when it is available. Those who pay for additional seats can also get a refund after travel if the flight already had a free seat available.

On January 27th, Southwest will require these passengers to pay for an additional seat, including all fees for that extra seat, before they can get on the airplane. If additional seats are available on the flight, they can still get a refund, though, as long as they request it within 90 days of travel.

These are some pretty big changes, so we wanted to make sure that all our readers have a good understanding of the new policies before they go into effect. We know a lot of AllEars readers fly on Southwest Airlines, so we hope this makes these confusing policy changes a little clearer.