Parents’ opinion on Southwest’s policy is going south
Southwest Airlines recently changed the boarding process for parents with small children. Until recently, travelers with children 4 years-old and younger were allowed to pre-board, avoiding waiting in the “cattle call” line with everyone else.
The airline changed that luxury Oct. 2, making these families board after passengers with “A” passes found their seats. Southwest said the change will help the company streamline its boarding process while also giving families more time to grab a last-minute snack or drink in the terminal.
But some parents aren’t hungry or thirsty and instead want Southwest to go back to the old mantra of women and children first.
An East Coast group recently started Stop Southwest Preboard, an online petition asking the airline to change its new policy to the former. The group has a strong message to Southwest Airlines if the company does not rethink its change: “We are parents of toddlers. We fly. And we will be taking our business elsewhere.”
How does the new boarding policy affect you?
Ja’Rena Lunsford, Business Writer
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Comments
Thanks for the mention. To respond, the ticket price is the same for an adult. A seat is a seat is a seat. Unless, of course you have a new born and then you probably have a “lap child” with little cost, if any.
Actually I’d ask another question, “What is the value of the sanity of both the parents who get to board quickly and first as well as the value of the sanity of the “business person” who gets to sit far away from the kids”?
That is, in the old process the families tended to sit together in the “cheerio ghetto”, allowing the rest of the passengers to steer clear.
Now, with the kids boarding between A and B, parents and kids are EVERYWHERE and therefore it is harder for the business guys and gals to steer clear.
Bottom line is that families with kids are also business travelers and families with 3 year olds have those kids grow up to be teenagers.
Those teenagers will now be flying other airlines, not SW.
Regards,
Shaun Dakin
http://www.StopSouthwestPreboard.com
Let the parents with kids go somewhere else.
I wasn’t aware parents and kids went to any certain part of the plane when they preboarded- seems like I’ve always seen them scattered throughout no matter when they boarded.
My big complaint is that SWA doesn’t load from the rear- they should have the people in group A go to the rear of the plane and fill up all the seats- so that hopefully by the time they get to group C the people aren’t searching for scattered seats.
I hate the fact that if I’m in group C- some person in group A has already snagged the aisle seat- forcing me to climb over them to get to the middle seat.
For the first post above… I have recently started a job which I will be travelling across the country several times a month. Before I even started this job, I have already reached enough flights to get my first free round trip flight. I loved southwest, so much so that I found myself defending their policies to my friends and family. Until recently. I didn’t know about this policy change until my wife was to fly to california with our 4 month old daughter. Of course, the first thoughts that came to mind are:
A) Why??? What will this prove?
B) This will make it much more hectic for us and for other passengers. Instead of me sitting with my wife helping her when the baby spits up, it will be a stranger with baby spitup on his suit.
C) Who is this better for?
– Not families who must be separated from each other
– Not the strangers who will have other people’s children sitting next to them
As for business people “Keeping the airline in the air”, I guess you don’t realize that most professionals actually have families, like myself. For my new job, I get to largely choose which airline I fly on when I’m flying business. My job is 75% out of state travel. I will probably rack up 75-100 flights per year. But I can assure you, they will not be with Southwest, unless they change this policy very soon.
Regards,
(Previous) Southwest customer
What is the ticket price for children “4 years and younger?”
What is the value of a “satisfied” parent traveling with such curtain climbers to the airline vs. the value of a “satisfied” walk-up business person paying full-boat to the airline? Which customer is keeping the airline in the air? It’s a slam dunk.