Alex T
2007-11-12, 05:14 PM
Hello All-
Now I'd like to make a disclaimer, if your biased against or for WN, your view is clearly not going to change of your opinion on Southwest Airlines, whether its a "real" airline to some or not.
But the fact remains, we changed our boarding procedure and online check in, and the feed back has been amazing.
First and foremost, we changed to allocate the A passes for the new business select and A list people for A1-24. So for those checking in online and you checked in right at the 24hr mark you are almost assuredly going to get straight to A25 and beyond.
This will be adjusted based on how many Business Select fares were actually booked, against the history of how often Y fares were booked on that specific route. Keep in mind if your flight is the 2nd leg of a connection from an incoming flight, THOSE people will also get to the A passes before you do.
I recently flew on a trip, observing the new procedures in STL, MDW, IAD, BOI and SLC. Those airports of course had questions but most seemed to understand it immediatly and actually welcomed the change. Not at one station I flew to, passengers were standing in line "hours before the plane got here". Everyone sat down or went off to do other things knowing with confidence that they did not have to stand in line anymore to hold their place.
It was very weird to not see anyone stand in line ahead of time and often times mouth dropping. We have become more orderly, and when its time to board, like any other airline, those in the group, stand up to their spot, then they start boarding. It is much quicker and faster.
So to recap the boarding..
If your on A list or Business Select Fares, your automatically assigned A1-25 (depending again on the number of people flying this route).
Go online and print your boarding pass or go to airport to print it.
If you booked a business select fare, you will be given a coupon to print online to recieve a drink for free (alcoholic wise)
Familys if they do NOT have an A card are invited to board after A and before B, and F/A are SUPPOSED to help them out in allocating them seats together, unfortunatly the F/A have not been THAT helpful but some do remain to be helpful also.
That's basically it. Questions or comments about it feel free to ask me here.
WN is very excited about this, and Nov 8th (the day WN launched Business Select) was a record booking for southwest.com, beating WN's previous southwest.com bookings record by 20 percent. Overall, for total sales, this day ranks in the top ten.
There is more to come in the future for the business folks! Intl code sharing announcements will be coming soon, as well more new routes, internet on board is also being checked out to!
Alex
Now I'd like to make a disclaimer, if your biased against or for WN, your view is clearly not going to change of your opinion on Southwest Airlines, whether its a "real" airline to some or not.
But the fact remains, we changed our boarding procedure and online check in, and the feed back has been amazing.
First and foremost, we changed to allocate the A passes for the new business select and A list people for A1-24. So for those checking in online and you checked in right at the 24hr mark you are almost assuredly going to get straight to A25 and beyond.
This will be adjusted based on how many Business Select fares were actually booked, against the history of how often Y fares were booked on that specific route. Keep in mind if your flight is the 2nd leg of a connection from an incoming flight, THOSE people will also get to the A passes before you do.
I recently flew on a trip, observing the new procedures in STL, MDW, IAD, BOI and SLC. Those airports of course had questions but most seemed to understand it immediatly and actually welcomed the change. Not at one station I flew to, passengers were standing in line "hours before the plane got here". Everyone sat down or went off to do other things knowing with confidence that they did not have to stand in line anymore to hold their place.
It was very weird to not see anyone stand in line ahead of time and often times mouth dropping. We have become more orderly, and when its time to board, like any other airline, those in the group, stand up to their spot, then they start boarding. It is much quicker and faster.
So to recap the boarding..
If your on A list or Business Select Fares, your automatically assigned A1-25 (depending again on the number of people flying this route).
Go online and print your boarding pass or go to airport to print it.
If you booked a business select fare, you will be given a coupon to print online to recieve a drink for free (alcoholic wise)
Familys if they do NOT have an A card are invited to board after A and before B, and F/A are SUPPOSED to help them out in allocating them seats together, unfortunatly the F/A have not been THAT helpful but some do remain to be helpful also.
That's basically it. Questions or comments about it feel free to ask me here.
WN is very excited about this, and Nov 8th (the day WN launched Business Select) was a record booking for southwest.com, beating WN's previous southwest.com bookings record by 20 percent. Overall, for total sales, this day ranks in the top ten.
There is more to come in the future for the business folks! Intl code sharing announcements will be coming soon, as well more new routes, internet on board is also being checked out to!
Alex