Comments on: Southwest Opts for Bingo Seating

By: John LoPreto

John LoPreto — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:14:55 +0000

One of the smaller airlines (Eastwind) used this method with great success. It actually had the side effect (advantage) of getting people to the airport (before 9/11/01) earlier and with less delays at boarding.

Once you got your number (they didn’t need the letters), you were free to go and do anything else you wanted until flight time.

At flight time they called the numbers in groups of 10 and boarded in that order with open seating. The worst you could do was to be 9 people behind where you showed up in the check in.

Easy to control, easy to handle, simple to manage. I was fond of it.

By: The Cranky Flier » Trip Report: Southwest’s First Day With Bingo Seating at LAX

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:15:44 +0000

[...] I flew to Vegas yesterday morning on one of the first five flights out of LAX using the new Bingo Seating boarding process. Since I’m actually attending the BlogWorld Expo conference, I figured, hey, [...]

By: laurie

laurie — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 17:24:40 +0000

i like this!! i fly 2x a month. the standing in line to get on, and then out of the blue i give birth to some 60yr old that wanted to stay seated the whole time attaches themself to my hip like they are with me.
i think that people that need the xtra tome because of d/a should then get off last. its so funny to watch them run off the plane but walk like a gimp to get on.

By: b p heiss

b p heiss — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:12:17 +0000

I live in SA and it failed on the family part especially over the summer months with lots of families and strollers, who cares let them go first. Carseat and stroller folks were pretty upset on a through flight that was full and planes were late, I experienced it on 3 of 4, so someone cooked the books for Gary Kelly to think that is faster. Staying with Gary, he had a public apology for the skirt girl as he said SWA never should have dealt with her that way and took away her “Freedom to move about the country” well said Gary, but with your Bingo Seating you took away my freedom to move about the country and if I choose to get to the plane 3 hours before the flight and had an A pass and wanted to wait in line that was my choice, but you have caved into whiners and making us all become lemmings. SWA had a unique flair and with Herb and Collen going I think this guy will ruin the airline. Many business men I spoke with have one question, what airline out there besides SWA can you walk up and be able to get a ticket for under say $650rt, answer None, so Gary a lesson for you, If it is not broke don’t fix it! I can’t wait to fly and have a connection and have A3 and the connection is late and I get to my gate in BWI and say they are boarding the C group, you better wait till I get there or I will demand everyone off so I can get my A3 seat. You should have seen SAT this summer too, no place to sit as they took out seats at the gates, and the idea of freedom to move about the terminal is a joke too. Should look at TPA and other airports that adapted to the old cattle call and arranged the seats in 3 rows from A, B, C and you all sit and wait or a few would stand, no cattle call there the past few years, Hey Gary get out of the office and get out in the field like Herb did, you might learn something and see that when you allow your employees to make decisions they work. Oh well. One last thing, before looking to go international, how about getting to all 50 states, like break into MSP and break it up. Oh that is right that goes back to example on business fares that are cheap, you won’t see a commercial on that cause it is an unwritten secret in the CEO world of Commercial avation that little secret is between them. Good luck it will be a fun Holiday season with Bingo Seating.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:25:59 +0000

Any airline that has to “teach” consumers how to board ts airplanes has probably designed a flawed process. For an airline that focuses on simplicity in so many aspects of its operations and business, this seems to be overly complex.

It still doesn’t address WN’s primary product deficiency for me, personally: lack of assigned seating. I want to choose my seat at time of booking.

By: Cliff Barnard

Cliff Barnard — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:36:05 +0000

Well, I like this. I’ven’t flown Southwest, but hearing about the cattle call boarding just kinda scares me. I’m one of those who doesn’t get out of his seat on other airlines until my row/boarding group is called..

The one worry I’d have from an operations standpoint is the time it takes to “reload” the line. Sure the jetbridge acts as a queue, but do you wait until there are five people in line in 1-5 if 5-10 are full? This is going to introduce some tricky situations into the boarding process. I don’t know of another airline that separates their passengers into such small boarding groups. SWA has gone from three boarding groups per plane to 28 per plane! Thats quite a switch..

I wish them well with their endeavors to mature the airline into its next era.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:13:22 +0000

I wonder how this will work everywhere i mean in grade school kids couldn’t line themselves up properly by number