Airlines Confidential‘s Scott McCartney breaks news in this week’s episode about how Southwest Airlines will change its boarding process next year, to go along with the rest of the changes to its business.

When Southwest Airlines moves to assigned seating they will no longer line everyone up prior to boarding. Like the rest of the airline’s moves, Southwest’s boarding process will converge towards being much more like other airlines.

• Gone will be the stanchions, and having passengers line up by group and number
  
• In its place with be 9 boarding groups

Currently Southwest Airlines passengers line up with a boarding letter and number, and board in order. Passengers self-organize in line, checking with each other to make sure they’re queued up properly. Those pylons help – most often with numbers 1-30 on one side, and 31-60 on the other, and often a pylon for every 5 places.

Boarding order is assigned based on elite status, fare type, whether they’ve paid for ‘Early Bird’ check-in (getting a boarding number assigned just before those are open to the rest of the flight) followed by the order of check-in. Passengers on ‘through flights’ can stay on board or save their earlier seat from the first segment and keep it for the second.

Customers wanting to save money but still board earlier, hoping for an aisle seat or at least to avoid the middle, check in as close to 24 hours before their flight as possible

Years ago, before the pylons (and numbers printed on boarding passes), passengers received plastic boarding numbers.

This queuing in order means that most passengers line up and are ready, in a more or less orderly fashion, before it is time for them to get on the plane. They board quickly and find seats quickly. Their boarding order is a ‘license to hunt’ for the best seat.

All of this adds up to very quick and efficient boarding. Combined with free checked bags, passengers also didn’t bring as much on board planes. That means they didn’t take as long storing belongings, and – even though Southwest hasn’t been as quick to increase overhead bin size as other carriers – they deal with less need to gate check bags which takes crucial minutes just prior to departure.

Combined, Southwest has been able to turn planes more quickly, which means less time for an aircraft on the ground not making money, and more efficient scheduling at times that most appeal to customers. Those are all features Southwest will lose as it charges for bags and seats.

• Even if bag fees add just a few minutes to boarding each aircraft, that’s a huge loss to the airlines. Fourteen years ago, when they were much smaller, they estimated that “it would cost us approximately 8 to 10 airplanes of flying per day if we were to add just a couple of minutes of block time to each flight in our schedule.”

• Since airlines are trying to optimize schedules for connecting flights, they don’t just push each flight later in the day. Customers want certain times, too, and their competitors fly certain times, so there’s a scheduling inefficiency that derives from small delays.

Southwest realizes, though, that when boarding order no longer affects what seat you’ll have, customers won’t have the need to go through that drill. A new boarding procedure makes sense. But nine boarding groups is akin to what American, United and Delta do. It means the introduction of gate lice, people milling around boarding before it’s their turn. It means customers trying to board out of order, either for restlessness or to ensure access to overhead bin space which will suddenly become more scarce as everyone tries to bring their belongings onboard to avoid bag fees.