Southwest doesn’t have assigned seats. It’s first-come, first served. You get a boarding number and then line up in order. But Southwest has no rule against saving seats.
And that leads to a crazy amount of game theory and shenanigans that passengers go through to try to get an empty middle seat next to them. Whether it’s crumpling up tissues, spreading out, claiming your seatmate “is in the bathroom” or placing donuts on the seats, passengers try to get people to pick other seats – hoping that the last remaining one is beside them.
One passenger decided to tell a lie to keep the empty seat next to him open, on a flight that cabin crew announced was completely full. As the plane filled up, he told each passenger who eyed that middle seat next to him that it was taken and his wife was just in the lavatory. He tells this to a flight attendant, too.
He sticks to his story even as the last passenger, looking for the last seat on the plane, tries to find a seat – walking up and down the aisle of the aircraft because he was told that ‘last seat’ was already taken.
Guy in front of me- nicely dressed in a suit, keeps turning people away from middle seat. Towards around last of B group-FA asks him and he says his wife is in the bathroom. Last poor guy gets on and he just looks like a beat down dog trying to find the last seat. He walks up to the guy and “This seat is taken.” The guy is looking around confused. Everyone is staring at him as he tries to walk back to the front. He’s super embarrassed.
The flight attendant bangs on the lavatory door but no one answers. Then it hits her, “there is NO wife is there?”
The crewmember calls out to the last passenger, letting him know he can take the seat after all, “SIR, you can sit back here. Apparently this man’s wife jumped out and left him.” And she comped that last passenger a drink.
Now, to be fair, when crew announce that the flight is full or even ‘completely full’ that doesn’t always mean 100% full. It may just mean I>mostly full with a few empty middles – middles you want left open next to you. Or even if the flight shows 100% full, a few passengers might misconnect.
An empty seat is the best thing you can do to have a better flight. On most airlines it is luck. On Southwest it is strategy.
I think the best approach, though, is to not actually lie. 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!
Make eye contact and pat the middle seat to welcome them if you must.
@mikewdavis How to keep seats open next to you on a flight 😂
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
Some people don’t like the way Southwest Airlines seats are divvied out on a first-come, first-served basis but I find it’s great for people who book last minute (good seats may not be available anymore on other airlines) and for those that are strategic.
Even if you don’t get an extra seat empty next to you, Southwest offers an inch or two more legroom than other airlines do in their standard seats. So it’s a better coach experience than on other U.S. carriers even when someone does sit next to you.
SWA sure does it’s part to bring out the worst in some people.. What a terrible policy to pit passengers against each other with their Hunger Games boarding policies.
Just another entitled a**hole making life more difficult for everyone else.
The flight attendant should have very loudly called him out on it. Maybe make an announcement that they are delayed leaving the gate because the wife of the passenger in seat ZZZ is missing and has anyone seen her….???
Better yet, kick him off the plane so that he can get his wife and return. Then close the boarding doors on him.
SW makes you realize the US is really a third-world country.
What is the DOT waiting for to mandate seat assignments for all passengers and stop all this craziness?
If SW management had any working brain cells they would realize they would make far more money by selling seat assignments to all passengers and that will also stop the wheelchair fraud.
I had a similar issue last month on MDW to LAS. The FA asked and the passenger used the same in the bathroom trick but the FA wasn’t bright enough to notice the lavs were not occupied until I told her.
I think offenders should be deplaned for interfering with operations and they can take the next flight. That will stop this common behavior.
Those Vegas flights from Chicago south side can be rough. One passenger was even vaping hash oil- again the same FA “didn’t notice”. SWA issued me LUV script to ” solve” the issue.
Southwest is just Greyhound with wings
Yet another reason not to fly SW. I can’t justify flying them anymore because their tickets are priced similarly to United and United is a much better experience.
The only problem is that nobody would just sit down there. I would be stepping on the guy’s toes while moving to that seat.
No intervention is required, just need people that will self help.
EasyJet used to have unassigned seats so brings back memories. Can’t believe SW still do it as lots of opportunities to monetise seat selection and priority boarding.
Agree with all comments. I just can’t fly them. It’s the Walmart of airlines.
I’m a flight attendant and we were fairly empty in coach. The seating was 2/3/2. A woman was in an aisle seat in a row of 3. A man takes the aisle seat at the end of her row of 3. I see him out of the aisle seat & ask him why. He says she wasn’t feeling well & was recovering from XYZ disease. So I went over & asked her & she confirmed what she told the man. What ever it was she was getting over was contagious. So I told the captain who told me to speak with the gate agent. She was quite surprised that this woman was traveling so when she and I got back to the woman the gentleman was back in the aisle seat in her row. The agent asked if she had a letter from her doctor to travel & she said no but she was fine. End of the story they took her off the flight and until she could present a note from her doctor saying she could fly she would not be traveling! haha
@Brendon … +1 . Cool move .
It’s a full flight, what do you think is going to happen?
Is the idea of constantly reporting this monotonous story theme that SWA will change their policy
on ‘saving’ seats? Probably sooner than later they will have to anyway because incidents will come
to physical confrontations and ambulance chasers will hold SWA responsible. Surely there must be some airline news out there, Gary, then yet another squabble on SWA open seat mishaps.
SWA drives other carriers out of markets by selling cheap tickets – and one big savings was not preassigning seats. Once they own a route they raise prices back up but with the same sh*tty service. I once saw a fight in the boarding line around Christmas time forcing the gate agent to threaten no boarding! Chaos. Ridiculous.
I refuse to fly SWA if at all possible!!!
Ok being we are sharing secrets on Southwest my sleazy neighbor says he brings cheese with him onboard and if he doesn’t like the female passenger eyeing his row he opens his plastic pouch and within a second or two they go running .
Apparently this is the cheese below though I hadn’t heard of it
He said they have to be hot pretty and young otherwise they get the cheese stench
Vieux Boulogne:
Researchers at Cranfield University named this cheese the world’s smelliest cheese,
and in France, it’s even banned from public transportation.
Think I’ll stick to Gouda personally 😉
The trick is to check how many seats are booked when boarding the plane. You can see it on the agent’s screen. Then you can adjust your seating strategy depending on whether the flight is full.
Southwest – it’s to the point now unless Southwest is direct and no one else is – I will use SW solely because of this craziness
So southwest management – do you need a massive drop in share price ? I will pay MORE for the same flight at any airline with reserved seats
There are several methods that could be used to keep the seat next to you unoccupied that don’t require lying. If you have the ability to fart on command, ripping a few during the broad boarding process works. More drastic measures include vomiting, coughing uncontrollably, fart spray and if nothing else, soil yourself. Not bathing for several weeks helps. So does wearing a red Maga hat and talking incessantly that Trump is the second coming of Christ.
I agree with the above comments. What really gets me is that Southwest doesn’t just allow this behavior, it encourages it. There’s ways to fix these situations fairly easily but they just won’t do it, instead actively encouraging the absolute worst aspects of humanity. Southwest just needs to remove the incentives for these jerks to commit fraud.
Some straightforward ways to mitigate the fraud:
Anyone requiring early boarding only gets one person with them.
Early boarding parties must gate check bags and be last off the plane.
If a passenger using a wheelchair is not last off they should be banned for a few years, fined heavily or both.
No saving seats, Period.
Had this happen many years ago on SW when PAX were given a plastic card with their assigned sequence number. Lady has a small child with her who was supposed to sit on her lap. Instead, she put the child in an empty seat.
Last to board walked up and down the aisle looking. Since flight was already delayed, FA’s made no effort to pin down issue and gentleman was escorted off.
I always just sit down anyway. If, not when, she comes back we’ll deal with it. She never comes back. I’ve sat on people’s food, bags, and headphones when I asked nicely to please move I’m sitting here. There is no seat holding so I have zero problem. I’ve never been told to move by any FA.