I talked yesterday about Southwest’s broader plan coming out of its investor day, but today I want to talk about the most significant change, Southwest’s decision to assign all seats and add an extra legroom section. Before we start, I should say that there is a lot we know, but there are still things we don’t. In other words, I don’t have all the answers, but we do know a lot, enough that Southwest let us walk through an airplane with the new seats and cabin design so we could see what the future holds.
Let’s start with the new look and feel. If you like blue, you’re going to like what Southwest has planned.
The New Seat
The new Recaro seats are dark blue like the seats you see on Southwest today, but there is a new light blue accent on the headrests. And extra legroom seats have more of a light blue accent at the top of the seat itself. You can see this most clearly in row 16 on the 737-8 MAX where the window seat has extra legroom since there is no seat in front but the aisle and middle are regular seats.
There is more blue in the carpet design as well. Add in the cool blue mood lighting, and it’s just all so blue….
The seat itself has a device holder along with the USB charger that will charge your laptops. The tray table was designed with cupholders on both the left and right, so lefties aren’t ignored.
And in a nifty little add-on, the seatback pocket down below has water bottle holders built-in.
The broad idea is to have a lot of extra legroom seats, more than most airlines with the product. Let’s talk about each aircraft type individually, starting with the ones we didn’t see.
737-700
The old ladies of the fleet are going to remain the worst experience unless you’re a tall person. This aircraft will lose a row, dropping from 143 to 137 seats. It will then have 40 extra legroom seats with a whopping 36″ of pitch. Everything else will be at 31″.
The worst part of this plan is that the -700s will not get new seats. They will keep the same seats and just have them recovered in the new design. They will not get power.
If this feels like lipstick on a pig, it is. These airplanes will be gone by the end of the decade, so apparently Southwest thinks it’s ok to just let them limp along. If you’re tall, the extra legroom section is great. If you’re not, avoid this airplane.
737-7 MAX
Assuming that Boeing will some day get the -7 certified, this airplane will join Southwest’s fleet with 148 seats instead of the original plan for 150. Extra legroom seats will be at 34″ of pitch with the rest at 31″. These airplanes will have Southwest’s new Recaro seats with USB power that were revealed to us at the event. There’s no real reason to talk about this airplane yet, so let’s skip ahead.
737-8 MAX/737-800
These aircraft make up the bulk of Southwest’s fleet and will continue to have 175 seats onboard. Instead of having 32″ of seat pitch across the board, there will be 68 seats in the extra legroom sections with 34″ of pitch. The rest will drop to 31″ of pitch.
As of now, there are more than 120 aircraft that have Southwest’s newish Meridian seat that has power installed. Those will keep those seats but be recovered in the new design and moved around to create the extra legroom section. Once everything is approved by the FAA, new deliveries will get the new Recaro seats. There are apparently about 60 of these airplanes that still have the old seats. I believe these will be replaced with the new Recaro seats when the time comes, but some of those may end up being sold off anyway, so we’ll see.
Southwest had a brand-spanking new MAX in the hangar for us with the new seats onboard, but those will be ripped out and the regular seats will be installed so it can enter service.
I’d like to say the seats are comfortable including the oversized headrest, but I sat in them for 10 minutes. Until I can sit for a couple hours, it’s hard to say if they are really comfortable.
I can say that the legroom is good for me, even in the regular seats. But I am only 5’8″. Here’s how it looks as I apparently do my best Alfalfa impression.
The cabin is broken into four different areas. Here’s the real seat map which doesn’t differ all that much from the guess I mocked up two months ago:
The first five rows on each side make up 30 extra legroom seats. There is only a row 1 on the starboard side of the aircraft, so that means in row 6, the port side has extra legroom while the starboard side does not. Curious what that looks like? Wait no longer…
That next chunk of seats in front of the exit includes 45 regular seats which will fall into the “preferred” cabin, meaning you’ll pay extra to reserve these seats in advance.
How the exit rows fall is somewhat unclear to me. The six seats in row 14 appeared to have extra legroom, but they do not recline. The four seats in row 15 are the worst, being both regular seats and having no recline. I don’t know if that will be considered preferred or regular. Same goes for the four aisle/middle in row 16, although those do recline. The two windows in row 16 are the same unlimited legroom seats that exist today.
Behind those are another 30 extra legroom seats. Those are followed by the final 54 seats which are the regular seat section.
What’s the difference between regular and preferred? Nothing, except that preferred is further forward, and so Southwest thinks it can charge extra for those.
So how will this all work in practice? Let’s go through it.
How It Works
If you book a ticket at the lowest fare, which Southwest will still call Wanna Get Away, you will not get a seat assignment in advance. You have three choices if you buy that fare:
- Wait until check-in, and you will be assigned a seat. I do not know if you will be able to select or change your seat after it’s auto-assigned or not yet. But if the regular section is full, you might find yourself in preferred or extra legroom, I suppose.
- You can purchase a seat in the preferred section as an add-on.
- You can purchase a seat in the extra legroom section as an add-on.
You won’t have the option to buy a seat in the regular section as an add-on. That is held for those who book the higher fare categories.
Wanna Get Away+ will include a regular seat assignment. What if the regular seats are all taken? We don’t know yet what that means. Regardless, you can also buy up to preferred or extra legroom seat from that fare if you want, but it’s going to be important to look at the seat map before deciding what to buy.
As for Anytime and Business Select, we don’t know anything. They haven’t decided which attributes will be included in those fares, but you can assume that they will include increasingly more goodies the higher up you go.
We do know that if you are an A-List Preferred top tier member, you will be able to reserve extra legroom seats for free at time of booking. If you’re regular A-List, you can reserve those for free at check-in. I assume either one will be able to assign seats in preferred or regular cabins at time of booking on any fare. This makes A-List status far more beneficial and important than it is today.
As of now, we don’t know if the extra legroom section will include anything else like free drinks and all that, but it is possible. Stay tuned.
Meet the New Boarding, Same as the Old Boarding
There’s also news on the boarding front. Southwest is going to keep the boarding poles that it uses today.
As I see it, there are two good reasons for this. First, Southwest already has these poles, and it wouldn’t be cheap to reconfigure every gate area. Second, this allows Southwest to control the boarding process. It can assign people to different boarding groups and positions to make it easier to get people on the airplane at the right time. This will making boarding go more quickly, and it will get rid of the gate lice that plague other airlines.
So when is this all happening? It takes time to do something like this, but Southwest’s timeline is actually pretty fast considering what has to be done.
The Timeline
The airline is beginning the FAA certification process for the seats now and will be done in the first half of 2025. After that, the retrofit will happen fast with 50 to 100 aircraft per month being completed. It’ll be done by the end of 2025.
The technology plan also starts now, and that takes the longest of anything. There are apparently more than 60 systems that need to be updated, and the airline needs to do a lot of testing each step along the way. Tech will be fully completed by the end of 2025.
This will be a hard cutover. One day the airline will have a systemwide network of open seating. The next day, it will all be assigned. We don’t have exact dates yet, but they will start selling in the second half of 2025 for travel in the first half of 2026.
Until that time, get ready for some surprise and delight. Airplanes will have extra legroom long before they start flying with paid and assigned seating. That means anyone will be able to take those seats, so I imagine those A1-15 early boarding positions will be in high demand on the day of travel.
It’s hard to overstate just how big of a task this entire thing is. That being said, the plan seems possible — FAA approval-permitting — and well thought-through. I look forward to seeing this come together.
