Southwest has had a big problem with boarding and deplaning since moving to assigned seats two weeks ago. Flight attendants have had reserved overhead bin space at the front of the cabin, so passengers in extra legroom seats haven’t had bin space above their seats.
That pushes those passengers to move their bags to other bins, and there’s a knock on effect as other passengers don’t have bins available near their own seats. Passengers are moving up and down the aisle of the cabin stowing their bags and returning to seats at the start of the flight, and retrieving their backs on arrival.
So the airline has decided to move dedicated overhead bin space for flight attendants to the back of the cabin. And their union does not like it.
Flight attendants get off the plane last, so it seems to make sense to have their bags at the back. They are also free to move about the cabin much more easily than passengers, so can access bags as-needed.
Some don’t like it because on certain aircraft the forward bins lock, and the rest don’t. There’s an urban legend about passengers taking flight attendant bags. The real issue of course is not enough bin space for bags so there are tradeoffs in Southwest’s move to extract more revenue, and those have brand and flight turn efficiency downsides.
Dedicated overhead bins for flight attendants above rows 2 and 3 aren’t new. It became more of an issue with charging for checked bags, because passengers bring as much into the cabin as possible. And with assigned seats passengers are immediately boarding – with those paying the most for their seats boarding first and finding no bin space above those seats – causing a problem of finding bin space at the very beginning of the boarding process.
Southwest: If there are any more ways to take a once cherished airline and screw it up beyond recognition, rest assured, we’ll find them!!!
Aww crap, they figured us pax out:
“The final three bins on each side of the plane are designated as ‘free for the taking;’ so if you like the bag, pilfer it.”
They should be more furious that their feckless leadership got them into this mess with rudderless direction followed by kowtowing to an activist investor group.
My preference would be to have FA bags gate checked and loaded below. Keep a valuables bag, but the roller goes as cargo.
Baring that, last row or an aft cabin closet for their bags. Just not in he pax space.
Put their bags in the hold. That is where they force us to put our bags when they ‘think’ the bins will fill up. They shouldn’t need their bags during the flight and at least they will be out there when they get off last.
Every day I get new reasons to never fly SW again.
I would think that having the bags be further away from the only exit door used in 99.9% of airplane departures would make the theft far less likely.
Many of them stay in the rear galley anyways for the entire flight, so there will always be eyes on it.
Agree with you. Back of the cabin makes sense. If the concern is really theft, then adding locks to the rear bins should be a relatively cheap solution. But I’ll bet once that’s offered, the FA union will come up with some other objection.
BTW, its not that “with assigned seats passengers are immediately boarding”. If anything, having a seat reserved should mean you can board later. If folks are immediately boarding, it’s strictly because of the bag issue. Assigned seats made it worse only because before, you’d still board as soon as you could, but you’d walk past open good seats with full bins, until you got to a bin with space.
Oh my word! First these prima dana’s complained about not being first in line way back in the day before ABC. Along came Gary Kelly who thought they were better than the average Customer and he instituted A-List and A-List Preferred along with ABC. He strived to destroy the house that Herb and Colleen built in favor of placating cry babies. Then the cry babies found something else to complain about in the form of people in wheelchairs who pre-boarded ahead of them and they started saying those people should sit at the back of the plane so that they could have the front seats for themselves. I guess if you are in a wheelchair you have no life worthwhile and certainly do not need to make a connection.
Now, today, they have gotten their wish and forced via the Predator to have assigned seats. Did that make them happy? No, of course not. Now they have demanded that the Flight Attendant take their bags to the back of the plane. I guess because the riff-raff is seated in the back and they do not expect or deserve any consideration of any kind.
I guess some people never outgrow their cry baby years and just continue on thinking of new things to stomp their little feet and whine about. I can hardly stand the wait to see what is next in their whiny little world.
I do hope Bob Jordan comes to his senses on this one.
No, I am not nor have I ever been a Flight Attendant. I just have common sense and consider selfishness a vice, and not a desirable trait.
Particularly considering that many SW planes have puny bins that in some cases only fit full size carryons on one side of the plane and/or require bags to lay flat vs on their side, the least they can do is not fill bin space in their “premium seats” with FA bags. If need be, add locks to the aft bins.
The FA’s need to get over themselves on this one.
The FAs don’t have the work load they once had. It’s really depressing what has happened to Herb’s airline ending up as a pawn for some sleazy investment group. We had the best!
Cue the world’s smallest violin
Have a couple of bins at the back that are reserved for crew and can be locked. Problem solved.
Gives new meaning to “Wanna Get Away” fares (with the crew’s bags)
Southwest has the best crews yet has worst upper management in the industry. It’s so bad, Robert Isom is looking to make a move from AA…
@George Romey — Rare decent hot take!
Put locks on the FA’s back bins….simple.
They want to get off quickly. So the front boarding passengers have their bags well behind them and this placement screws up all of the sequence of entering and exiting- and causes delay in deplaning. Goes against the SWA credo.
Good job SWA. Make the passengers and staff resent you! How’s that working out.
Explains a lot I’ve seen lately. Chaos.
This is such a weak argument by the FAs. The union should push the airline to quickly swap out the bins for larger ones.
Absolute nonsense. SWA FA’s camp out in the aft galley on their phones. NO CHANCE someone is stealing from their bags in the rear of the plane.
Wow… So. The changes aren’t that bad. The extended legroom seats are horrible. The seats have been both moved back along the central axis of the aircraft and rotated so that you have the appearance of more legroom, but many window seats are now severely intruded into by the protrusions between window frames. Row 3 window seats on a SW 737-800 are the third most uncomfortable seat I’ve ever sat in for a flight (the first is sitting on a milk crate in the back of a Gulfstream G550 with no seats). On the take over. For those of you that don’t have experience with corporate acquisitions, Southwest did not have a choice. Ridiculous statements about the CEO “betraying the spirit of Southwest” are disinformed. They were an asset rich company that was ripe for the pickin’ by Elliott. This along with endless complaints about things like “Jesus flights” absolutely contributed to creating an atmosphere for the acquisition. BTW, the author of this article probably wrote at least 10 blog posts about this. Speaking as someone who has flown SW almost exclusively for the last five years (40+ one-way flights every year), the wheelchair boarding was never actually an issue. I’ve worked for two tech companies over the last decade that faced the exact same scenario that SW did from both Elliott and Evergreen. Elliott has already forced SW to sell off their aircraft and real estate (leasing both back). If the company isn’t already, it’s not long before it’ll be nothing but a hollow shell with one objective… Turning profit. I’d be surprised if Elliott doesn’t decide to take the company private. There was NOTHING that the CEO could have done to stop this. For folks that griped endlessly about SW before the takeover (and folks that are griping now), find a productive hobby and please just choose another airline. Threatening not to ever fly SW again is an empty threat. No one cares, and you’re not that important.
@Sam Silver, Flight Attendants must be present on the aircraft until every passenger is off. If they have to scurry to another gate to work their next flight, they will have to waste precious time having to go to the back of the aircraft to retrieve their bags. This will unnecessarily delay flights, maybe your next flight. If there are passengers remaining on the aircraft for the next leg then again, FA’s must stay with the aircraft.
@JW – Elliott has significantly reduced its stake from its peak position after building the activist holding in 2024. They are not taking the airline private, nor has Elliott ever “taken over” Southwest in any form or fashion. At no point did Elliott hold a controlling stake, replace the full board, or install its own management team. A minority activist position with limited board representation does not constitute a takeover. Southwest remains a publicly traded company with a broad shareholder base and fiduciary obligations to all investors, not a private equity portfolio company. Southwest’s leadership has also stated that several of the strategic initiatives now being implemented pre-dated Elliott’s involvement, even if activist pressure may have accelerated certain decisions. Conflating activist influence with actual control reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how corporate governance works. Your narrative only makes sense if you completely ignore ownership thresholds, board control, and basic corporate law.
@mike Hunt you have no clue as to what Elliott does and how they operate. It made zero sense to sell fully owned aircraft and leave them back to anyone but Elliott, as Elliott was / is only looking for a quick cash grab. It’s the basic parasite life cycle, find a healthy host, use the host for your own benefit, leave the host as it dies.
The changes to assigned seating, no free bags, and a premium section were actions that were in response to the market. But cashing out aircraft and real estate when there is already a healthy balance sheet is not in the long term interest of anybody, including shareholders. This same action path was followed by the Cheechi’s at NWA and that sure turned out well didn’t it
It looks like Southwest is committing commercial suicide. They will soon go the way of PanAm, Virgin and TWA. #byeFelicia.
Airlines need to stop prioritizing flight attendants over pay passengers.
@American: It takes all of about 5 seconds to walk the length of an empty aircraft. No plane is being delayed because FA’s have to walk to the rear to get their bags on an empty aircraft.
And no doubt some of these new hires can use the extra steps.
So funny all the armchair experts on here. The real issues are (even without the crew bin issue); ELR seats rows 1-6….36 seats. If every person brings two items that’s still not enough bin space (on a 700). Folks don’t wanna use the underneath space due to a “first class expectation” of not wanting to have anything crowding their leg space. Most airlines have 12-16ish domestic “first class” or “plus” seats” with placarded dedicated space. Lately at SW, pre boarders not in ELR seats put their stuff in bins that should be reserved for ELR. Also Southwest has shorter ground turns and more crew changes than other airlines so yeah an extra 5 minutes for crew to grab their bags can make a difference in operations. So before folks trash the SW cabin crew, plz realize it’s really a bigger issue beyond the crew bin, that should have been addressed before the rollout.
@ScottyB SW has shorter ground times and tighter turns than other airlines. SW also has more frequent crew changes than other airlines. Often, thru flights going on to a destination with same flight number are not empty with a much as 20-30 thru passengers clogging the aisles during ground time. SW attendants also “tidy” aircraft between flights. There are no cleaners. So yeah even an extra 5 minutes for crew to go to the back to grab their bags can make a difference in operations. BTW the remark about newbies or anyone needing extra steps is childish and unnecessary.
And for all those who are saying “let the FAs put their bags under the plane”, I hope you’re delayed/cancelled when those bags go to baggage claim and the FAs can’t find their bags and aren’t able to work their next flight. That’s a real scenario that’s happened before when crews have been forced to put their bags under the aircraft.