Southwest Airlines is revamping its product with extra legroom seats, less legroom in back of the aircraft on larger planes, redeye flying and partnerships with other airlines. They’ll be charging for checked bags, and expiring travel credits. Rapid Rewards points have been devalued.

All in all, Southwest is becoming less differentiated from other airlines. They’re becoming the same – but less than. They charge for wifi, and it doesn’t work as well as on other airlines. They don’t have seat back entertainment screens. They lack standard power outlets. There are no lounges and no first class cabin. They don’t fly long haul, and they don’t have global partnerships that let you use your points worldwide either.

However for a few months Southwest Airlines is going to offer many passengers exceptional value, before bringing down the hammer. Here’s how to take advantage of the window – that stems from the airline’s transition to offering premium seating that they can sell, but they need to install the seats across their fleet before they can begin charging.

Southwest expects to make seats assignable for early 2026 – but these seats will start flying in just a couple of weeks.

Southwest can’t sell premium seats until they have enough planes converted to be sure that the plane operating a given flight will have the new seats. They’re converting planes throughout 2025, but it’ll be 2026 flights that have these assigned seats.

That means you become increasingly likely throughout 2025 to wind up with a plane that has premium seats, but where seats are still available free on a first-come, first-served basis. You’ll board and be able to just sit in a seat with extra legroom.

• Extra legroom seats will begin entering service on or about May 1, as reported by Travel Weekly.

• They won’t be offered for sale until the end of September. And that’ll be only for flights starting in the first quarter of 2026.

• So until then, and for the rest of 2025, if you get an aircraft with extra legroom you get those seats for free.

You’ll have the best shot at these, of course, if you have an early boarding position (since Southwest does not yet assign seats) and you know where to look.

Southwest is updating the seats on its Boeing 737-800 and MAX 8 aircraft first, and moving to its smaller 737s in the fall. They’ll be updating up to 150 planes per month overnight in Houston, Phoenix, Denver and Atlanta. Note that “In the late summer, Southwest expects to begin affixing visual indicators to differentiate exta-legroom seats.” Until then, be on alert for them!

Dark blue with yellow seats have extra legroom. These are at the front of the Boeing 737-800 and MAX 8 aircraft in this illustration.

Between these forward seats and the exit rows will be sold as ‘preferred’ – they don’t have extra legroom, but will cost more because they’re closer to the front and you won’t waste as much time waiting to get off the aircraft at the end of the flight.

“Standard” seats do not have extra legroom, and will be at the back of the aircraft. These seats should have about an inch less legroom than they do today.

For 2025, Southwest Airlines passengers are going to be getting more than they pay for – making Southwest an increasingly better value proposition to fly throughout the rest of the year. Come 2026, it will be Southwest that benefits from these seats in terms of higher fees. But while passengers are getting them free it’s a modest windfall.

The basic problem with Southwest Airlines is that they’ve outgrown their model. They were the most consistently profitable airline for decades – racking up 47 straight years of profits, even through 9/11 and the Great Recession – with a simple formula. They had low costs, a single fleet type, and simple customer-friendly policies.

Now, however, Southwest is no longer a low cost carrier. They can’t serve small markets with regional jets, bringing connecting feed to their larger planes. And they don’t offer premium products that customers want to buy.

These changes aren’t going to fix that. There still won’t be a first class or even blocked middle seats for sale. It’s noise around the edges, to borrow a phrase from a former CEO of Marriott. But it satisfies their activist investor, and their newly-installed board members. And that keeps top brass employed.