Southwest is Reducing Turn Times: Don’t Panic (Yet)

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.

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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.

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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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