Airline seating

[dishdude]

I refuse to fly Cattle Car (Southwest) Airlines.

If you're flying coach, there's nothing wrong with them. Spirit and Frontier are bottom of the barrel.

I somehow made Executive Platinum on American, so I've been flying them for the most part.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Southwest is the Cadillac of the budget airlines. Pretty good experiences whenever I flew with SW, and despite being assigned to a lower boarding group, there seems to be an occasional open seat in the front everyone walks by.

 

[wag123]

I refuse to fly Cattle Car (Southwest) Airlines.

Unfortunately, if you fly a lot Southwest is a necessary evil because... they fly from more places to more places than any other airline, they have the most direct flights to and from smaller to mid-size airports (I always take direct flights whenever possible), they don't charge change or cancelation fees, and they don't charge for checked luggage.

Yes - Log on at the first possible second. By the first minute, many of the positions in the cattle call boarding process will be gone.

You'll line up by group - then it's a free-for-all to get a seat. The closer you are to the front of the herd group - the better your options will be when you board.

Some people love it.

I think it's horrible, personally, like opening morning at a Wal-mart on Black Friday, with the same clientele, in fact...

Still, some folks love it.

I like to get in the "B" boarding group because families with small children board between the "A" and "B" boarding groups and I want to know where the little kids are sitting when I get on the plane so I can avoid sitting next-to or near them. The worst flights I have ever been on involved little kids sitting next-to or very near me. It was so bad on one flight I was on that the flight attendant felt sorry for me and gave me free drinks.

 

[Eddie]

I fly the "People" flights on SW airlines, and they do a great job for the price. I don't care to disrespect people or things like OCOD, Garbage this or that and Cattle car.

 

[RhondaHonda]

Pay the $15 for early bird checkin if you are concerned about getting stuck in a middle seat. Don’t do this if your flight is only a day or two out though as it won’t benefit you much as you’ll be the 40th person to pay for it.

 

[PF52]

Pay the $15 for early bird checkin if you are concerned about getting stuck in a middle seat. Don’t do this if your flight is only a day or two out though as it won’t benefit you much as you’ll be the 40th person to pay for it.

That's a good point. If you're buying tickets on Monday for a flight on Thursday, you'll do almost as well just waiting until -24 hours to check-in instead of spending the extra money for Early Bird check-in. But you have to be right on-time at -24 hours because a few seconds tardiness can cost you several places in line.

I buy Early Bird check-in only for my Return flights.... I usually am not in a place where I can check-in online at -24 hours so I let them do it for me automatically.

One other thing to keep in mind: On a 737 two-thirds of the seats are aisle or window, so middle seats really don't start getting filled until late in the boarding process. If you board and there's nothing left but middle seats, try to spot what might be a married couple occupying a window and aisle seat.... Often the one on the aisle will just move over and let you take the aisle seat.