I flew Southwest after its seating policy changed — and everything about it was baffling – Yahoo Creators

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Much has been made about Southwest’s changes lately, most notably its swap from its long-held practice of first-come-first-served seating in boarding groups to a new assigned seating method.
I’ve been flying Southwest since I regularly popped up and down California as a UC Berkeley student in the 1990s. But May 1 marked my first flight since the policy changed on January 27, 2026. I was curious to know how it would go.
Best-case scenario, I thought, I’d get a good seat. Worst-case scenario, I reasoned, I’d get a bad seat but a good story to write. Oddly, I somehow got a brackish mix of both.
I was flying from the Hollywood Burbank Airport to Santa Rosa in California's wine country. I was flying alone, with only a carry-on roller bag and backpack. When I got to the airport, I checked in at the kiosk and waited to see my seat assignment pop up. (Technically, I had already set an alarm and checked in online exactly 24 hours before my flight — old habits die hard — but I had not been assigned a seat at that time.)
At the airport kiosk, a pleasant surprise: I was assigned seat 1A. I couldn’t understand why, as I had not paid for such an upgrade — but I wasn’t about to ask any questions. This seemed like a good omen (but stay tuned because the plot thickens).
Then I made my way through the TSA PreCheck line, only to find out when I got to the front that my boarding pass wasn’t tagged TSA Pre. That’s strange, I thought. I booked my own flights and I always remember to put my known traveler number in the system. Oh well, back through the regular line I went.
With time on my hands in line, I opened up my phone to see an email from Southwest that I had been cleared from the standby list for today’s flight. Wait, what? I booked this flight over a week ago, and it was fully confirmed already — nothing about standby. It also noted my 1A seat assignment. What was going on here?
I found my gate easily (bless the famously easy-to-navigate Burbank airport) and waited patiently there for boarding group 4, which was the one printed on my boarding pass. When I boarded the plane, however, I noticed all of the bins in the front were already entirely full. “Why didn’t you board earlier?” the flight attendant asked me when I inquired about the bin space. I told him I waited until my group was called, and he expressed confusion about why my 1A seat would have a group 4 boarding assignment.
He found a space for my roller bag back in row 9 — thereby rendering useless one of the best parts of sitting in the bulkhead row, which is being first to deplane. But I thanked him.
Much later, after I had boarded, another passenger sat down next to me in what is nominally supposed to be a premium row. I asked him if he had purchased the upgrade; no, he said, he had also been assigned this seat randomly. And he was assigned an even later boarding group, 6.
Almost everyone else in the front rows of the plane — which are billed as the upcharged premium rows — boarded after me. I assume almost no one paid for these upgrades.
Then I remembered a story I had done recently about a photo that went viral on Reddit. It showed fully empty seats in these rows, with passengers crammed into the back of the plane behind them. It seems few people are eager to pay for these rows — and it’s a bad look when they all go empty. It further enrages passengers already displeased with the new seating scheme.
To be clear, this is me making assumptions based on anecdotal experience as a regular flyer on a given day, combined with internet buzz — not an official policy I confirmed with the airline.
Ultimately, I have only positive things to say about the flight attendant, who was kind to me — shout-out to Zack on SWA flight WN1016. He offered me double the Wonderful pistachios (a small gesture that matters when you’re super hungry and seated in a bulkhead row with your plane snack in the overhead bin!), and later moved my suitcase further up to a spot he’d found closer to the front of the plane.
So as is almost always the case, I give Southwest’s cabin crew an A — for both execution and effort, in a tough climate.
And the flight departed on time, was uneventful in the air, and arrived safely and on time. Those are the biggest things, of course, and I have no complaints there. I also appreciated the extra legroom, so thanks for that.
But with so many other details that felt way out of touch with reality and practicality, I worry for the airline that was formerly a fan favorite and is losing loyal customers amid changes that are not only unpopular but — in my case at least — utterly perplexing.
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