A passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight from Washington DC to Dallas snapped a photo of an entire row of seats blocked off using bags of donuts. The passenger who did it wasn’t even seated in the row but nearby, saving those seats for their family.
On Southwest Airlines, which has ‘open seating’, there’s no rule one way or another about seat saving. You line up by boarding group and number, which is assigned based on the fare you pay, your elite status with the airline, and the time you check in. People who request wheelchairs get better seats, whether they need the wheelchairs or not.
For Southwest’s passengers, it’s a free for all, everyone for themselves when it comes to the ‘cattle car’ rush for seats. And everyone has their own technique for securing the most space on flights that aren’t completely full and will have an empty seat somewhere (so it might as well be next to them) or to ensure their group sits together – even though only one person paid for earlier boarding
People place crumpled tissues on the seat and act sick. They act like they’re fighting with the other person in the row. They spread themselves or their stuff into the seat beside them signaling that it’ll be uncomfortable to sit there. Or they place their stuff in the empty seat to make it look like someone is seated there. Sometimes Southwest Airlines passengers look intentionally creepy to scare off potential seatmates.
But bags of donuts is a new one?
Woman saving an entire row of plane seats behind her with donut bags.
byu/Hog_Fan inmildlyinfuriating
Imagine paying for earlier boarding and finding that the seats are already taken by passengers who aren’t even on board yet, with a lower boarding position, who did not pay. Then the plane fills up, only middle seats are ‘left’ though a whole row is empty?
If you’re overweight you can have a whole row to yourself and you don’t even need to use donuts, though eating the donuts might help position you for that row to yourself.
I actually do like the way Southwest Airlines seats are divvied out first-come, first-served as someone who books last minute (good seats may not be available anymore on other airlines) and as someone who sometimes changes flights on the day of travel. They also offer an inch or two more legroom than other airlines in their standard seats. And I like that you can help control your own destiny over whether someone sits next to you or not – when the flight isn’t full. Just pick your strategy.
I would take great pleasure in picking up one of the bags on the aisle seat, moving it to the middle one and then sitting down. When she says something I’ll let her know I have a right to the seat if not occupied by a passenger.
This is ridiculous and hopefully someone sat there and ruined her plan
Move a bag a donuts to a different row and middle seat?
FTB. That shits all getting thrown on the floor.
Move it? I taking, opening it up and saying thanks for the gift. 🙂
For maximum family traveling comfort when flying Southwest Airlines, this passenger should consider blocking off FOUR rows of seats by ordering a dozen donuts and then putting one donut on twelve different plates. She then places one donut on a plate and places the plates on her choice of twelve adjacent seats to warn these seats are reserved, including the row in front and a row in back of her family. Pro tip: Save money. The donuts do not need to be fresh.
Free snack and a good seat, yes please. I’m sitting down chowing down.
Were I not on Keto, I’d grab the seat and throw down the donuts.
I do not think it is fair. I think Southwest could give the person who actually paid for the option to board early some type of “boarding pass” but no saving seats! It would be easy to fix if they wanted to, I rarely fly on SW because of the seat situation.
I noticed the casual comment about the wheelchair hack to board first. People without handicaps that use this method to board first infuriates me. They are boarded with wheel chairs and walk off the plane. I know some need them – I’m handicapped but don’t need a wheelchair and I know personally about invisible handicaps that may require early boarding.
I was recently on a cruise and heard a woman loudly telling others how she used the wheelchair trick to get on a Southwest plane early without paying for the privilege and encouraging them to do the same. It took all of my self control to keep from screaming at her.
If I encountered this crap one of us would not be flying that day and I guarantee it wouldn’t be me.
When I see a full bottle of water on a seat, I do not see it as saving the seat but rather as the preboarding distribution of water by the cabin crew (some airlines do this). On Southwest I would maybe pick up the bag of donuts, plop down into the seat and check in the bag to see if they were what I wanted. But that would only be if the seat was a window seat or I had no other choice that I liked better.
I do believe I would pick up a bag and sit down and enjoy them and then offer the other bag to anyone who wanted it. Unsat in my opinion that anyone would do this but it’s typical of today’s travelers; rude and obnoxious to say the least!
There are so many loose cannons traveling these days. And southwest’s stupidity will bring them out…
That’s why you don’t fly SouthWest! But the Houston/Dallas shuttle is a fun flight in the afternoon, lol!
Just a matter of time until a passenger dons a fat-suit in order to get a whole row for themselves.
Could the conversation go this way:
Arrive at that row go to seat, then say as loudly as possible “Wow! Southwest is giving away free donuts!”, then turn to the front and yell as loudly as possible “Thank you Southwest!”.
When the person approaches and says “I was saving those seats” just respond “That’s unfortunate. I flew this flight yesterday and already saved this seat. You know, first come first served”.
If the person responds “you’re not following the rules”, then we can just ask an FA to come over and explain the rules, to which I’ve read over and over again that there are “no rules”.
Thats why I always travel with my trusty rubber dog shit. Place it on the seat next to me no one ever takes it!
I would take the donuts and redistribute them to those in the rows immediately behind and challenge the airline to do something about it.
I don’t like Southwest’s insanity because you can do everything “right” and still get forked.
Only way that policy will ever change is if Southwest went to assigned seating. That’s why many people fake needing a wheelchair, so they can pre-board and save seats
I refuse to fly SW. As a handicap person I do not need a wheelchair and board along with others but find it abhorrent that some people fake being in need of a wheelchair to receive a benefit.
My disability cost me a career that paid over $250,000/year in 2008. I rarely fly anymore and if I do it is on an airline that respects and reward honesty.
Bags & Dontus fly free!
I’d grab that bag, plop into the seat, and then sneeze into it. And just totally ignore anyone who tried to talk to me about it.
@Sally – I wish you would have less self control and let that person have it for their despicable behavior.
Better yet I’d just plop down in the seat and squash the donuts. When the seat saver complains I’d just say I didn’t see it.
SW refuses to adopt a policy becsuse they don’t want their crews to have to confront pax.
I’m with @Patrick, @AC, and @HS. Free snacks.
On a SW flight from Fort Lauderdale to Houston Hobby a few days ago, I had seat A11 (I purchased sn upgrade). Twenty one wheelchair passengers plus an equal number of attendants boarded ahead of me, followed by a dozen more people who needed “extra boarding time. When A group was called, I patiently waited my turn, only to have a fellow with a dog jump ahead of me as I was a out to scan my boarding pass. Since there were ten ahead of me, I knew he was cutting line. I yelled at the SW:agent who replied, “Man, I can’t do nothing about that. I will get in trouble” I sat in Row 13 and stewed. SW is a boarding mess…not to me Rion the flight was delayed more than an hour.
Funniest WN Seat Saving stunt I heard over the holidays: a guy in A took a window seat, stowed his bags and proceeded to pull a pie out of his backpack and eat it during boarding. Not a piece of pie…a whole pie. He was painstaking about letting crumbs fly everywhere to discourage strangers. It worked.
Mom taught me to be polite. However, I get annoyed with this tactics.
On the very first row of a SW flight, one woman was sitting next to the window and the second on the aisle. I said in a slightly elevated voice: “Is that middle seat taken?” You’ve should have seen the chagrin on their faces.
Before we hit the runway, they were passing snacks between them which were far better than the pretzels. For such a short flight, I stuffed by the time we arrived in Florida!!
This is a loose cannon in the lap of SW. Eventually, a brawl will ensue and someone will get seriously hurt over a “saved seat”. The situation will be show cased on social and TV media!!!
Then the lawsuits will be filed, accusations made, and SW will claim “innocence” via a tersely worded press release like “We take fist fights seriously!!”
All this because SW wants to sell the first 15 boarding positions at a premium without the corresponding responsibility.
She is a pig. Let her whole party buy upgraded boarding positions. She has no civility. I bet she is a delight to have to sit near too. She and people like her will probably make me not fly Southwest as they will turn it into Air Greyhound or worse. People who are self entitled trash.
I’d b like, “Oh, look! Free snacks! Thanks, Southwest!!!” and sit my fat *** right down with my complimentary donuts.
I fly Southwest occasionally and am also extremely frustrated watching people walk around without any physical disability until they reach the gate. Then they need a wheelchair to get from the gate to the entrance of the plane just to be able to choose a seat before others. When will Southwest catch on to how this angers their customers?
OK, clearly, a row of donuts is ridiculous and deserves to be squashed. But is there any reasonable etiquette/assumption around being in two different boarding groups to keep a seat for family members?
I’ve got the Southwest Business Credit card- comes with 2 EarlyBird check-ins a year. If I have 3 members in my party, and I use 2 early birds for me and my wife, surely I can tell people we’re saving the middle seat for our daughter, right?
What about only using one Early Bird and trying to save the other two seats?
@George, if you have two early birds and your daughter doesn’t have one, the best thing to do would be to sit aisle and window near the back of the aircraft. Have your daughter take the first open seat she finds and find a space for her carry-on.. Now she has something better than the middle seat at the back to bargain with. Instead of delaying the airplane, do the swap when the seatbelt sign goes off. Ask the middle seat person to swap and have your daughter stand up so they can see where they are going to. I think that doing this would work most of the time. Make sure that they can get their carry-on into the available space. The rule is to give a better seat but personally I have always had someone trying to give me something worse or much worse.
I’m a multi-year Companion Pass with over a million points. With that status, I am almost always A1 for boarding. I can tell you that the pre-boarding situation is really getting out of control.
It’s not a huge issue on early morning flights but if you’re going to a destination like Florida, Las Vegas, or Costa Rica, you’ll have 30-50 pre-boards.
I do routinely fly other airlines depending on the schedule and the route and I can tell you that the amount of pre boards on other airlines is far fewer. Probably 12 preboards for a full 757-300 SFO to Orlando whereas a significantly smaller capacity, yet full, Southwest 737-700 from a smaller airport going to either Orlando or Tampa will typically have about 30+preboards. The numbers just don’t make sense.
It’s getting to the point now where I’m really reevaluating my use of Southwest.
Because I live in California and I have to fly East all the time + the lack of red eyes + I have pretty decent Star Alliance status, + the fact that if you’re going east of the Mississippi from the West Coast it’s impossible to get any direct flights anywhere. I’m actually booking business class red eyes with United when I need to go east and taking Southwest on the way back. ( there’s a lot less pre-boarding issues when you’re not heading to a vacation destination).
I don’t see anything wrong with saving 2 seats next to you especially if you purchased early boarding. But. Saving more than that is going overboard. I’ve sit in.the aisle and saved a middle and window seat myself for my travel mates. I just select rows that are a bit further back so that other passengers are less likely to complain. I would be polite and if a person was adamant to take the seats. I would give in.or see if another 3 seats together are available. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if we ended up not sitting together although it would be preferable. I wish seats were assigned.
@ Gary — I would take the seat and eat the donits.
The only way the abuse of wheelchairs would change is if the FAA would intervene and do something about it. Even then, I don’t think anything will happen. There’s that thing called ADA-American Disability Act that takes precedence over everything. So, legally no airline can do anything about the abuse of wheel chair boarding. Assigned seating is the only option. But the majority of Southwest passengers like the open seating and will never go for assigned seating. So, I guess fly another airline that has assigned seating. I’m amazed also at how many that come on in a wheel chair, can automatically walk at the arrival. It’s a miracle!! But all airports are short staffed sky caps, so ops agents are asking the preboards in wheel chairs if they can walk down the jet bridge. I think a lot of times, it’s sure laziness. Atlanta and Chicago for example. Tons of wheelchairs in those cities cause they are too lazy to walk their asses down the jetbrdige.
Why do people have to sit next to who they are traveling with? I mean, it’s such a small %.of the trip. Can’t you just sit next to someone you don’t know? Heck, I flew from Houston to Africa by myself, sitting next to all sorts of people. It’s just transportation.
I have had Rheumatoid Arthritis 40 yrs, had multiple surgeries including the two 6 inch rods in my back and 1 in my neck. I use a walker but I let all those seat savers go before me. My husband is allowed to board with me. My walker is loaded as luggage with the luggage as I enter the plane It is annoying to see that line of wheelchairs board first, even to me. They walked into the airport, I used my walker to enter the airport and used my walker to arrive at the boarding area. We have been seated halfway back because the w.chair passengers save seats! I liked Delta airlines assigned seating
Last year I flew from San Juan to RI. When boarding the plane, after paying for an upgrade, I saw THREE rows of seats with umbrellas across them. I picked my window seat, moved the umbrella, sat. The man saving the seats started berating me in Spanish and in a make-pretend accent, I told him I didn’t speak Spanish. He then starts berating me in English and I sweetly told him in “broken” English that I didn’t speak English. Dude was losing his mind. I ignored him and will continue to do this any time I see it. I have been flying SW since its inception and they are losing me as a customer. Between the wheelchair fiascos, the $125 EACH WAY to fly my little 6 pound dog under the seat, and the mostly nasty personnel at Baltimore airport (although they are fantastic elsewhere). AA, JetBlue, I am coming back!
I understand the appearance of a person using a wheelchair but later walks while on the plane. My son in law needs a wheelchair because he can’t stand for more than a few minutes or walk for any length of time. He has no “cushion “ between each of his vertebrae and his spine has 4 fractures. He can’t feel his left leg except for the severe pain. While traveling he does walk to the restroom but with a great deal of pain. You can’t always see a disability or know how much pain is being tolerated because maneuvering a wheelchair to a plane restroom would be difficult.
The reason I’ve never flown Southwest and never will.
The level of selfishness shown by people who “reserve” seats for their travel mates , the ones who haven’t paid for the right to early boarding, boggles my mind and makes me incredibly angry. I don’t know a good policy for the airline to prevent such things except having the crew or customer service personnel on hand to stop it immediately. Such is probably not practical except in a perfect world.
Years of living in NYC has taught me not to be shy in this type of bag-in-seat situation (happens at busy gate seating areas, too). Move the bag and sit down. Don’t need to argue.
@ Gary — I don’t understand why WN doesn’t just friggin’ move to assigned seating. I cannot think of a single reason not to do it. I realize they still run the entire airline on a 1980’s desktop, but surely they can shell out for a new PC. Seriously though, I am certain they haven’t switched because they don’t want to incur the IT cost.
We do not fly southworst (correct spelling) because of their policy. As a disabled person, we buy first class seats on United and Delta. Economy seats are not expensive so just buy two seats if you are traveling alone or all 3 if you have a companion. It may not work the way you want on Southwest but the major carriers will sell you a second seat online – no problem. You will also get assigned seats. Then you will not have to stress about sitting next to an undesirable stranger. I do not use a wheelchair because I can go a short distance (although slowly) from the gate to the plane. I have my disability placard clearly displayed. We agree that are hardly any “cheaters” on the major airlines preboarding. So to those that bitch about actual disabled people doing preboarding to get to their first class seats, get a life and have some compassion about the disabled even if they choose not to use a wheelchair from the gate to the plane. To those who say they cannot afford 2 seats in economy, take a look at your nonessential spending and eliminate as much of it as you can so you can afford it.
I always fly Delta due to some of the problems stated here.
My family will NEVER fly Southwest! It was the worst experience ever. The pilots do not care about the passengers and the flight attendants provide the worse customer service. Their airplanes smell and you definitely need to wear a mask COVID or not. They are dirty and they will force your children(no matter the age) to sit with total strangers, just because no adults want to lose their seats. We almost walked off the plane because the flight attendants refused to ask passengers if they would consider moving to find at least 2 seats together, so our 6 year old son could at least sit with one of us. UNREAL!