{"id":15101,"date":"2026-05-09T09:50:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T09:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/09\/i-flew-southwest-after-its-seating-policy-changed-and-everything-about-it-was-baffling-yahoo-creators\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T09:50:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T09:50:43","slug":"i-flew-southwest-after-its-seating-policy-changed-and-everything-about-it-was-baffling-yahoo-creators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/09\/i-flew-southwest-after-its-seating-policy-changed-and-everything-about-it-was-baffling-yahoo-creators\/","title":{"rendered":"I flew Southwest after its seating policy changed \u2014 and everything about it was baffling – Yahoo Creators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stories
Creators
…
Much has been made about Southwest\u2019s 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<\/a>.
I\u2019ve 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\u2019d get a good seat. Worst-case scenario, I reasoned, I\u2019d 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 \u2014 old habits die hard \u2014 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\u2019t understand why, as I had not paid for such an upgrade \u2014 but I wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t tagged TSA Pre. That\u2019s 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\u2019s flight. Wait, what? I booked this flight over a week ago, and it was fully confirmed already \u2014 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. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you board earlier?\u201d 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 \u2014 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 \u2014 which are billed as the upcharged premium rows \u2014 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<\/a>. 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 \u2014 and it\u2019s 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 \u2014 not<\/em> 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 \u2014 shout-out to Zack on SWA flight WN1016. He offered me double the Wonderful pistachios (a small gesture that matters when you\u2019re 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\u2019d found closer to the front of the plane.
So as is almost always the case, I give Southwest\u2019s cabin crew an A \u2014 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<\/a> that are not only unpopular but \u2014 in my case at least \u2014 utterly perplexing.
Want more stories like this? Use the button below to follow me for more relatable Xennial takes on travel and lifestyle.<\/em><\/strong>
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source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

StoriesCreators…Much has been made about Southwest\u2019s 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\u2019ve 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}