Of all the things that Southwest announced in its turnaround plan, the changes in seating were obviously the most buzzy. But I’ve been surprised to see just how much talk there was around the decision to reduce turn times. This is not quite what everyone assumes, so I thought I would dig in deeper to explain exactly what’s happening here.
Your initial thought was probably the same as mine. I assumed this would be like back in 2013 when demand was strong and Southwest wanted to add more flying. To do that, Southwest’s network team reduced turn times. The ops team under COO Mike Van de Ven agreed it could make that happen, but it could not. It was a disaster. The scheduled turn times were reduced, but the actual time it took to turn an airplane did not improve. And thanks to Southwest’s terrible technology at the time, it took over a year to fix the schedule.
Mike is long gone, and the airline knows better than to try to repeat such massive mistakes. So instead of focusing on the schedule this time around, Southwest is trying to physically reduce the time needed to turn an airplane. It showed off what it has learned at investor day.
Let’s walk through some of the initiatives.
Baggage Report
Southwest handles a lot of checked bags, so it has been working on ways to speed up that process. The one thing that stood out to me during the discussion was talk about how they are going to handle connecting bags in a better way.
The airline is putting together a report for the ground crew the day before travel that assumes one checked bag per person — the hazards of not knowing in advance if someone will check a bag. That will help the ramp get an idea of how many connecting bags it can expect the next day. Then the ramp will work to load those bags on last to make it easier to get them off first.
I’ll admit, by the time we got to this part of the day, my eyes were glazing over so I didn’t quite get everything that was going on in this process, but the idea is to make things work better with baggage.
RIDS
I remember more than 20 years when we at America West got Ramp Information Display Systems (RIDS) installed at each gate in Phoenix. So it was more of a shock than anything else that Southwest still hasn’t done that. There was an example set up in the hangar for us.
If this looks kind of familiar, it’s because this is the same company that makes scoreboards. And as you can see, there is only 50 seconds left in the game, and I think BWI is winning.
But really, this just keeps the rampers on the same page as everyone else. It makes it clear when the airplane is leaving, how much time is left until that happens, where they are in the boarding process, and more. It’s a no-brainer that most airlines discovered ages ago. If nothing else, this is a damning indictment of the airline’s failure to invest in past years.
Paperless Turn
Meanwhile, up top, Southwest has gone to a paperless turn, meaning the reams of paper that used to have to be given to crews will no longer exist. They go on the tablet instead. Sure this saves paper and all that, but the real benefit is that crews don’t have to wait around for paper to be delivered. They can see in real-time what’s happening and don’t lose time sitting around. This speeds things up… again as most airlines have known for years.
Visual Announcements
Up in the terminal, Southwest is working on making people move more quickly. Part of this includes visual announcements on the screens around the gate area. Does this matter? Apparently it does make a difference in their tests. It certainly prevents passengers from aimlessly wandering around saying “which group is boarding?”
Boarding Possibilities
This one is kind of fun to think about. Southwest has said that with assigned seating, it will keep its boarding process in place. People will still line up and board when called. With assigned seating, however, Southwest can rethink the order of how it puts people onboard.
It will keep let elites board first, of course, but once it comes to the regular people, Southwest can do whatever it wants. The best idea seems to be to let people board in different parts of the airplane at the same time. This creates less of a cluster and makes boarding go faster.
But the best part is that if this doesn’t work, it can just rearrange how it boards people pretty easily. The seat number and the boarding number don’t have to correlate, and that creates a real opportunity.
The Jet Bridge Experience
This is their name, not mine. But Southwest wants to get people moving through the jet bridge more quickly. How will it do that? First, it will install speakers in jet bridges and play some fast-paced music. Testing apparently suggests this actually works to get people moving. It seems to me this may also increase the number of jet bridges fist fights (from, um, zero to more). At least it’s just audible and they aren’t using cocaine misters to get people moving.
With those speakers, Southwest can also let the cabin crew make announcements in the jet bridge. This can help to tell people things like overhead bin space is full. It should help prevent spinners in the aisle looking for places to put those bags. I’m more bullish on this part.
Crew and Gate Agent Chat
The last one I want to point to is a new chat function that will let all these people who work for the airline talk to each other. Think about it this way. When the bins are full, what happens? The flight attendant in the back may tell the one up front, and then that eventually gets to the gate agent who stops letting people bring big bags onboard. But there are a lot of people who don’t get stopped, because it takes a while for the message to make their way up the chain.
Southwest is now installing this chat function on its tablets so everyone can talk to each other in real time, eliminating the lag.
All of this, it is hoped, will come together to give Southwest an extra 5 minutes of slack. Naturally, this won’t all happen right away. It’s not as easy as just throwing up RIDS at every gate one night (it’ll be in 12 stations in the first round) or installing speakers in jet bridges everywhere (that part shouldn’t start until 2027 widely). But Southwest says what it can implement right away will get the airline where it needs to be to see actual improvement.
With physical turn times reducing, Southwest can then start to adjust schedules as well. It’s doing a slow implementation of that starting in November. I confirmed that the reduced schedule will start in Austin, Sacramento, and some smaller stations which they didn’t name. They aren’t putting it into the big hub cities until they get more of the infrastructure in place. It sounds like Houston/Hobby will be the first one to get the royal treatment in March.
In November, the schedule will gain the airline the equivalent of one extra airplane. But by the time the rollout is complete in November 2025, Southwest will have gained 16 airplanes’ worth of flying just from that small reduction in turn times.
Whether this works or not, who knows. But at least the rollout is slow and methodical so that if things don’t work out, it won’t tank the entire operation.
Jon, Brian, and I tackle Southwest’s investor day this week, and I appear to be the most bullish of all of us about the plan. Come and listen to the alternative viewpoints, because it will be well worth your time. I promise. If it’s not, blame Brian and Jon.
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47 comments on “Southwest is Reducing Turn Times: Don’t Panic (Yet)”
I had heard 10 extra planes not 16. This is a best case scenario, factor in weather, overbooking, maintenance issues, ground stops then what ? This is some bean counters pipe dream. Only way to gain aircraft is to acquire them….Airbus are you listening ???
Why should an all-American airline with an all-American fleet think of buying Eurowhite-clad Eurotrash airplanes?
Airbus also has a factory Mobile Alabama
Eurowhite, Eurotrash, only without the Euro.
Airbus delivers planes. Boeing delivers deferred deliveries.
Airbus A320 family is a well proved airplane full of American made components. Your comment is silly and obnoxious
Embraers aren’t American. And Airbus has much better quality control than Boeing does these days.
They already have a bunch of new planes on order. They are deferring some of those. They are hoping that this move will help them defer a few more.
We have that chat function at DL. Everyone from FAs to the flight’s dispatcher are in what’s essentially a group chat. It’s pretty awesome.
UA has it as well.
Thanks for pointing out that most of these concepts aren’t very new or original, just new to Southwest, but it will be interesting to see how Southwest puts its spin on them.
I really like the idea of fast-paced music in the jet bridges. The music alone may not shave an insane amount of time off the boarding process, but music with a fast tempo does tend to make people move faster, and should help to wake/sober up pax boarding planes in Vegas :-). While I’m not looking forward to Muzak in the jet bridges personally, it should be an easy and relatively cheap thing to implement. As a bonus, the music can be used to help subtly brand WN as the “fun” airline and the speakers can play some occasional marketing messages if desired.
I’ve seen the RIDS type displays for many other airlines from my window seats in planes, but I’ve never realized until now just how much they look like the “status boards” for airport management games where one has to try to turn planes as fast as possible… Providing the key data at a glance to help turn planes faster makes sense, whether it’s in a game or in real life.
Yes, WN catching up to everybody else, one decade at a time.
Be curious how they implement the music as well. Not sure they can do marketing messages. At some airports, they can’t even install (or aren’t supposed to) company advertising on the walls as the jetways have been sold as advertising space to a third party by the airport.
Oh boy, I could imagine those jet bridge announcements… “Yall better get a move on otherwise we’ll never gonna get out of here on time.”
Yep. So much of the Southwest PA feels like “Adults Being Relentlessly Cheerful while Talking to Recalcitrant Children.” Now the condescension can start on the jet bridge.
If it gets people off their collective a**es and gets them moving, we’ll all be happy.
Incredible how behind the times Southwest is. Sounds like in some respects they are still a mom and pop operation.
The better performing carriers have been precision loading connecting bags, priority bags, etc. since the 1980’s, as well as what the writer called the chat function at the gate using different tech as tech developed.
Does anyone know if Southwest has baggage scanning tech at every station in the baggage and ramp areas? I don’t think so.
Also noticed they have little planned to communicate directly with customers via texts, etc on their phones leaving them further behind.
Yeah, I think the fact that there is this much low-hanging fruit available just shows how much they have under-invested in technology in the past 2 decades. Still, the fact that there are this many “easy wins” is a bullish sign for them going forward, assuming they can execute.
I still have my doubts about keeping the “Bingo Boarding” columns – having that disparity between the letter that stands for your seat and the letter that stands for your boarding group is going to lead to confusion.
Perhaps they could give the boarding groups names instead of just letters, like “Alpha” instead of “A”?
If cocaine misters worked Vegas casinos would have installed them years ago, so I’m glad they’re not trying that.
This sort of thing could be solved with some good visual design on the boarding pass, but I’m not sure WN is up to the task.
The other option is to change either the bare area letters, or the seat letters. It could be 22 DEFGHI, skipping ABC…
This all sounds, uh, very expensive. I get it, you have to spend money to make money, and at least they’re trying. But, wow, they are behind on so many fronts. I am starting to think Elliott might have been a good thing. I, for one, am looking forward to people finally stop calling them a “low-cost carrier”.
The PA on the jet bridge is pretty brilliant, if managed correctly. Like Sean & grichard said; its not the time to chastise your customers into cooperating or let the comedian FAs to test new material but pass along useful info about OHB space and middle seat only availability. All to the beat of Chappell Roan.
Maybe I’m suffering from misremembering syndrome but I share I’ve seen RIDS like displays at MDW & BWI. Probably not as detailed but some version nonetheless.
So Cranky,
Are you saying that Southwest is going to get rid of their Braniff IT systems? :)
Angry Bob – Fortunately they got rid of Cowboy many years ago now.
As someone who is loyal to one of the big 3 and doesn’t fly WN, I’m kind of shocked to learn WN has underinvested in some of these things for so long. Ignorance is bliss I suppose (for me and WN) but most of these feel long overdue
Correcting its underinvestment in technology also provides an opportunity for WN to look at processes that other airlines use.
There are things that other airlines do and WN can take the time to figure out what works and pick the best from multiple carriers.
One thing that should really help WN keep lower turn times is keeping the bags fly free campaign because it keeps a certain amount of baggage out of the cabin. It is dreadful how much longer it takes to deplane one of the big 3’s large narrowbodies compared to foreign airlines which have much more strict carry on requirements and even compared to WN. There is a point of diminishing returns for an airline in not having to invest in as many ramp workers to handle as many bags compared to the lengthened turn times for boarding and deplaning.
Add on the extra time and cost of preboarding and paying for wheelchairs that aren’t needed (there are and always will be legitimate preboarders and assistance passengers) and there is money and time to be saved.
the rub is how well passengers will take to being told to line up as WN tells them to even if they have an assigned seat. Part of the point of an assigned seat is not to have to rush onboard at the first opportunity or before and I suspect that some of the push and shove in Southwest boarding gates will come to an end. There will also be an end to people hunting around the aircraft for the best seat before sitting down.
The transition will be messy for WN customers and employees. You don’t change decades of traditional overnight.
> Part of the point of an assigned seat is not to have to rush onboard at the first opportunity or before and I suspect that some of the push and shove in Southwest boarding gates will come to an end.
Idk, “gate lice” are common for every airline, even though everyone except Southwest have assigned seats. People love getting on the plane right away, even if they aren’t worried about bag space. I don’t get it, but it seems to happen.
Exactly. People like to complain about the “cattle car” atmosphere or airliners, but then rush to get on the plane to sit in that environment. At the other end, people often aren’t very quick or efficient about gathering their brain cells and things and deboarding.
For most non-elite pax on most airline flights, trying to board early in one’s group does make some sense, lest one be forced to gate check a bag, which is the often the case for basic economy pax. For many pax on WN, however, who do not have carryon bags, that shouldn’t be an issue, and once assigned seating takes hold there shouldn’t be as much of a rush to board the plane (though there certainly will still be).
Fair points. Though on boarding, you’re right, if I have an assigned seat (and don’t need overhead bin space because I checked my bags for free) what’s my motivation to get on the plane any sooner than I have to? Why shouldn’t I stroll up at the last minute and board since I’m gaining nothing by boarding earlier in the process, much less line up by a pole 30-40 minutes prior?
Currently Southwest has one of the lowest level of ramp staffing as its standard. Part of it is because they contractually can do very little outsourcing and have very high labor costs (it’s very common for a 10 year WN ramp agent to make almost 6 figures with OT and overrides). So their standard is 2 agents per flight. They have a 3rd for bringing plane in/pushing out where required by the airport – otherwise they just use a wing walker on one side. This low staffing standard plus the high volume of bags (plus cargo) is probably why Southwest consistently has the highest OJI rate in the industry.
Will shortening turn times allow for better utilization of a plane? Let’s pretend the average Southwest jet flies seven legs a day. Shortening each turn by 5 minutes, gives it another 30-35 minutes of time it can be in the air that day, which is not enough to add one more leg.
I wonder if the real cost benefit will be the human cost. By saving 30 to 35 minutes a day, might they not need an additional crew to work the last flight of the day or something similar?
I understand your thought model, but it assumes that the flight lengths that a specific plane flies (and/or the total flight time for each plane for a given day) are pretty similar; those can be easily changed, often without pax realizing it.
If one can get 30-35 minutes more time per plane, the scheduling for a given plane could be tweaked, such that the plane “trades” a longer flight with another plane for a shorter flight, ad infinitum through the network, such that the same total amount of “air time” across the network can be covered by fewer planes, even if each plane is (on average) only saving a few minutes per flight.
Other WN moves will help with this, such as redeyes. Running redeyes for eastbound flights is a classic move, as it allows more planes to start the day earlier on the East Coast and “end” the day on the West Coast (thus giving 3 “free” hours on the clock due to the time difference, with the problem that the planes are stuck on the West Coast overnight, and thus would likely give back those “free” hours by starting comparatively later [in terms of Greenwich time, not local time] the next morning), and then return to the East Coast in time to do the same thing all over again.
The Three major problems that have plagued and Killed WN last 3 attempts (Don’t Be a Bin Hog, redefining excellence and the perfect turn) was the Ten minute Rule clearing Standby before departure, Too many Carry on luggage and Too Many pre boarding passengers.
Starting with the last one the new seat assignments this should address the Overwhelming Pre boarding problem which the scammers loved
Buying cheap and just ask to preBoard vs wasting money on Early Bird or Business Select upgrade. So this is a WIN WIN and it should bring a lot of value to the outdated product. Hopefully the days of 30 to 50 Wheelchairs on full flights goes away quickly now that the ability to scam the system is eliminated.
2nd biggest problem for WN is they have FAILED every single time at Enforcing the Carry on rule. Every time they have rolled out a new system to speed up the process they Loosely enforce the rules until everyone seems to just give up and it’s back to the free-for-all system. Oh they still try and make people consolidate down to one plus one. But as soon as the Ops agent scans the boarding pass by the time they get on the plane it’s back to 3 bags again with Stuffed overhead bins.
WN needs to take a page out of NK,F9 and UA playbook on how they regulate the limits and more importantly the SIZE rules to where it’s not a problem. All the Bigger over head Bins in the world aren’t going to achieve anything if WN doesn’t ENFORCE the carryon rules and SIZE regulations.
Last the “Ten Minute Rule” for clearing standby while trying to push 5 early is just shooting themselves in the foot. It’s a long outdated concept. With the Switch to Seat assignments they Need HARD cut off times. They have had a Bad history of catering to the late running passenger at the expense of the passengers that showed up on time. and I’m not talking about a delayed flight miss connection situation. We’ve all heard the hundreds of Terminal announcements for the missing passengers to hurry up to your gate of your gonna miss your flight. You almost NEVER hear that at almost any
Other airline. At 1 hr at the ticket counter or 45min before departure if you haven’t checked in for your flight they need to automatically cancel your reservation and give the seat to a Standby passenger.
All the technology and fancy speakers with hip music is going to achieve the turn success unless they actually address these 3 on going problems.
With the new Seat assignment and boarding system a Year away they have the ability for the first time to actually Address , Fix these Huge pinch points and Train employees properly to how the new system has to work.
High hopes otherwise it just gonna end up with Low Net promoter scores and the industry worst OTP rating again.
Bin hogging is such a killer, too. “Spinners”, as Brett calls them, are deadly to boarding efficiency as they force people to walk against the flow of traffic. Even if they find a bin spot it might be far out of place to where they need to be, forcing them to contra flow for both boarding and deplaning. But it’s not just that, trying to preempt this by advertising for gate checks is a sink for gate agent time and effort, moving bags from the bridge or gate to the belly hold ties up ramp agent labor, and doing this all after the boarding is complete means the time to closeout the paperwork is delayed.
Here I grudgingly respect Ryanair for charging for the overhead bin. They know how many bags will fit and sell only that many, everyone else has to check. It wouldn’t surprise me if they can even limit overhead bin sales by section of the aircraft to prevent people hunting for a space. A cabin bag gets you priority boarding, so nearly all the bags get boarded first and settled, with everyone else coming later.
Southwest might have success with something similar. Two bags fly free, sure, but if you want one of them in an overhead bit it must be reserved. Of course it only works with strict enforcement.
Hmm…. over a decade ago AirTran had a dispatched bag runner system in ATL whereby agents were sent by flight with a list of which connecting destinations to grab based on volume and connection time. Then ran bags tail to tail or to a transfer holding point depending on duration of connection. From one to four runners were sent to an arrival depending on number of connecting bags and number of flights. You had all of those folks there for the initial offload thus making it run much faster. AirTran commonly turned 737s in under 30 minutes.
AirTran also used to have one of the best, if not the best, (meaning lowest) bag mishandle rates in the industry. The ATL hub was commonly under a 2.2.
But this is just yet another thing Southwest spent a fortune stationing people in ATL for months on end observing and note taking and then said “we know better cause we done it this way for 30 years”
Excuse me, but AirTran flew smaller 717s.
At the end they had 52 737-700s, which they originally acquired for the transcon flights (after an initial experiment using wet leased Ryan International A320s).
While the new turnaround rule might work in several markets SWA flies to, I am not sure if it will work well on their ETOPS flights to Hawaii. As many who are aware of ETOPS know, there are special checks on the plane that must happen before it is cleared to fly. From security to maintenance, there can be no deferred maintenance issues. SWA has given itself a bit of room on the last part flying 737-8’s to the relatively new islands. But even then sometimes these planes are pulled out due to technicals, thus delaying the trip. Whether the new turn around program will benefit the ETOPS flights, I suppose time will only tell.
A minor point but there can be no deferred maintenance issues that relate to ETOPS operations. Other deferred maintenance is permissible. For example, it is completely permissible to dispatch an aircraft for an ETOPS flight with a seat back tray table inoperative. Not to be nit-picky.
The test is how the system works and Southwest reacts when bad weather rolls in. It is easy to save the time a few minutes when load factors are not +90% and it’s sunny fall weather.
I must be taking the wrong flights because when I walk into the jet bridge passenger traffic is usually at a dead stop, and even the most relentlessly upbeat music can’t change that.
Back third of the plane are the first section to board in order of window passengers first, middle seat second, aisle third.
Rinse and repeat
The number of improvements suggested, and the fact that many are common practice at other airlines, suggests that Southwest has suffered from a severe case of inertia (and self-absorption) for years. They are definitely “behind the times”. Elliot shaking things up may turn out to be good.
I remember Southwest’s previous attempt to reduce turn time (years ago), and how it was an abysmal failure, with 1+ hour delays on every flight I took. Prior to that failure, I was a frequent customer of Southwest. Since then, I switched to other airlines, and now I fly Southwest only very rarely, when there are no other suitable alternatives available.
Since Ed killed my loyalty to Delta (I’m a Platinum Medallion) I might take a look at Southwest once these changes have been made.
For a few years before the pandemic, Southwest experimented with dual door boarding at a few airports including SMF, but then it stopped. With assigned seating, it would make sense to bring it back. Wouldn’t that speed up boarding and deplaning times?
They had hoped it would speed it up back when they tried it then as well, but it wasn’t enough gain to bother. I think they now only do dual boarding at stations with stairs at both ends.
Maybe they can implement the Steffen method of boarding. It’s in theory the quickest way to board a plane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steffen_Boarding_Method
“But the best part is that if this doesn’t work, it can just rearrange how it boards people pretty easily.”
I think this might be overly optimistic. The software changes necessary to implement a new boarding order, should the first try not work out, would almost certainly be cost-prohibitive. It isn’t like SWA can just flip a switch and presto, a new boarding order is ready. This would take months of work, if not more, to actually implement.
It’s amazing to me how overwhelmingly negative every comment section on WN is these days. Everyone seems to know better than WN how to run an airline even though WN has been profitable (even in the current challenging environment) with it’s simple, efficient model for so long. Yes, WN is behind the “industry standard” on some things and improvements can be made, but if you look at the data on turn times, WN does better than pretty much everyone else currently even without all the fixes. There’s a chart in the Investor Day presentation (page 54) that shows how much lower WN’s turn times are than the other airlines for domestic narrowbody aircraft. Other non-WN sources show something similar. Many elements of the Southwest model make it incredibly efficient already (e.g., free checked bags, single class/open seating, simple provisioning, tight scheduling, more direct flights, employees who are paid a lot but often really hustle). It’s not just bags. You can see and feel the efficiency if you take a Southwest flight around the same time as a legacy carrier flight. I did it recently. My WN flight left the gate 5 minutes early with a tight 30 minute boarding window and a completely full 737-800, and my DL flight two days later had an on time inbound but was late 45 minutes being “cleaned and catered. Then it struggled closing the door and pushing back. The whole WN turn is 45 minutes! The legacies have converged more on the WN model over the years, not the other way around.