Southwest Is Strictly Enforcing New Assigned Seats—Even With 18 Empty Rows, “Sir, You Cannot Move Like That!”


Southwest Airlines passengers have been in for a shock with new assigned seating. Until just a couple of weeks ago, passengers chose their seat when they boarded. There was a rush for the best seats. On flights that weren’t full, everyone just spread out.

Now, however, you must take your assigned seats. And passengers have been complaining online that they aren’t allowed to move into empty seats – even a different empty seat in their same row. I’ve seat people told they couldn’t move from the middle seat to the empty window beside them. They’ve been told they couldn’t use an empty seat next to them for their lap infant. And people were stuck squeezing next to each other on flights where half the rows were empty.

Southwest Airlines doesn’t just assign seats and sell seats, they’ve been enforcing seat assignments.

Here’s one where a mom was kept separated from her kids – and another passenger was forced to sit next to them instead. In another case, a flight attendant scolds, “Sir, you cannot move like that. SIR!…YOU can NOT MOVE like THAT!!!” In another case, “pay or be punished!”) The airline, for its part, acknowledges the frustrations.

You used to be able to take any open seat in your cabin once the doors closed. You might move closer to the front, grab an aisle seat, or head for an empty row in the back so you could stretch out.

This is actually how it still works on Delta, which actually explicitly allows moving to an empty seat in the same cabin subject to crewmember discretion.

If you and another customer agree to swap seats, please try to do so before departure whenever possible.

Any swap between cabins/seat products must be completed before in-flight service begins. After service starts, moving between classes is not permitted.

If you’d like to move to an unoccupied seat within your ticketed cabin/seat product during the flight, please ask a flight attendant — changes are at the crew’s discretion and depend on safety considerations.

As a kid I remember making a bee line for an empty middle row on an American Airlines flight from Honolulu to Sydney, so I could lay down and sleep.

  • Self-upgrading was never allowed. You couldn’t just move from economy to business class.
  • Now, though, airlines charge for ‘premium’ seats in coach so they don’t usually let you go from regular coach to extra legroom seats for free, even if the seats are empty once the doors close. (Delta considers extra legroom Comfort+ a different cabin, just not for tax purposes on London departures.)
  • People might not pay if they knew they could take an extra legroom seat for free that was empty once everyone had boarded.

The norms have changed but passengers don’t always know this in advance, which makes for a stark clash of expectations. One United passenger was shocked to learn that nobody would be permitted to spread out into wide open seats: the poors stay packed in the poors section.

Years ago open seats were pretty much fair game. Now different airlines take different approaches. Southwest still has open seating, for a little while longer! And once you’re on the plane it’s Lord of the Flies complete with seat-saving and crumpled up tissues to keep people away from the middle seat they hope to save.

In the past, United has argued that passengers moving up to open seats with extra legroom is immoral; that it’s unfair to other passengers and it’s stealing from the airline.

But according to this logic United shouldn’t be able to sell cheap fares or offer MileagePlus awards because it is unfair to people that pay full fare? Of course passengers who buy Economy Plus get Economy Plus and are in no way harmed when other passengers get it free – via elite status, via luck of the draw or otherwise.

Sitting in an open seat that can never be sold (because the plane is already in the air) is not the same thing as taking a physical car off of a lot where it is waiting to be sold. In the former case United loses nothing, in the latter case the loss is real.

It seems strange to compare United slimline economy seats to a Lexus, although I once had a flight attendant compare Economy Plus to a Mercedes.

The better argument is: we do not allow passengers to move to better seats without paying extra (except under our own terms, for our operational convenience or elite perks) because that would encourage passengers to take a chance rather than paying on future trips. The actual reason: It’s not allowed for revenue protection reasons, not because of a broader moral imperative. Their plane, their rules, and they can change the rules even after many decades of forming passenger expectations.

Changing to an open seat nobody else is using can’t be stealing because the airline hasn’t given up anything, and claiming it harms other passengers isn’t right either because other passengers still got exactly what they paid for. It is against the airline rules, not theft. It is not allowed if a flight attendant decides not to allow it. And this is just a way that Southwest Airlines has become far less passenger-friendly, just like every other airline, although in this case taking things to a greater extreme compared to Delta (and, for that matter, American).

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Southwest Is Strictly Enforcing New Assigned Seats—Even With 18 Empty Rows, “Sir, You Cannot Move Like That!”
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Igor Jeuhan