Southwest Airlines is known for the games people play to secure the best seats, because the airline doesn’t assign seats – it’s first-board, first-served. They do assign your boarding order, but passengers save seats for each other, and there’s no rule against it.

We regret any disappointment during the boarding process today. As you may know, all Southwest flights are open seating, and we don't have a specific policy for or against saving seats. We apologize for any frustration, and hope for smoother sailing in the future. -Hannah

— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) March 28, 2022

That leads to some extreme creativity, either to keep the seat next to you open when a flight isn’t full, or to save seats for your family that’s boarding after you (because you were too cheap, and only one of you paid for Early Bird Check-in).

Woman saving an entire row of plane seats behind her with donut bags.
byu/Hog_Fan inmildlyinfuriating

Once people grab a seat, they’ll scheme to keep anyone else from sitting next to them so they get the empty seat. Strategies include crumpling up tissues and place it on the seat next to them, spreading out onto that seat, or just being intentionally creepy.

@mikewdavis

How to keep seats open next to you on a flight 😂

♬ original sound – mikewdavis

A passenger caught a photo of a woman trying to save seats on Southwest, to keep that middle seat next to her open for the flight. Her strategy was to put her bare feet up on the middle seat she didn’t want anyone to take, and then refuse to make eye contact with other passengers.

If they didn’t have to sit there it was unlikely she was going to ask to be moved. I’d note that she was seated forward of the emergency exit. This strategy works even better if you’re a bit farther to the back because people forced to take middles will tend to do that as close to the front as possible plus once they’re told they have to they’ll just sit down rather than spending more time walking towards rows farther back. While the woman’s stategy worked, it was not foolproof.

New seat saving trick (woman’s bare feet on middle seat, no eye contact, companion feigning the look of embarrassment and ignorance)
byu/desimom99 inSouthwestAirlines

The idea here is to be someone other passengers don’t choose to sit next to if they have a choice? That’s fair – after all someone doing this probably isn’t who they’d want to sit next to!

Or, as someone looks like they might sit down beside you, reach out and offer them hard boiled eggs out of a plastic bag. Do it with an impish grin.

How to keep a middle seat empty on a flight! @SouthwestAir pic.twitter.com/wYY4l4ovnf

— Craig Muni (@CraigMuni) May 14, 2023

This is all going to change, of course, once Southwest Airlines moves to assigned seats.