SprxflySWA From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 597 posts, RR: 0 Posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2521 times:
I am just putting out my thoughts on this subject..I expect no responses!!
I am sick of people saying assigned seats are great.
How many times do you see more than one person assigned to the same 11A? Then how long to straighten out the ensuing mess?
The best thing about UNASSIGNED seating is that I have the choice to get on and sit by who I want to...not a CSA or kiosk.
That is all on this subject! Thank you for looking!
High_flyr69 From Australia, joined Apr 2001, 510 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2454 times:
I will always prefer assigned seating due to the fact that i dont like the idea of having to race some up the isle to get a seat i want when i can ring Qantas and secure it over the phone
high_flyr69
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice Doggy' until you find the shot gun
Goingboeing From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4875 posts, RR: 19 Reply 5, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2396 times:
But again, not knowing what will be seated next to you.
Or, as has been mentioned in an earlier thread, not knowing if it had been urinated in just prior to your boarding.
Nonrevman From United States of America, joined Nov 2001, 1289 posts, RR: 1 Reply 6, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2393 times:
In either case, there is no way to really know or control who is sitting next to you (unless you are a party of three). If you go for assigned seating, then you have no idea who is sitting next to you. If you fly SWA and get group A, you have no idea who in Group B or C is going to sit next to you. If you are Group B or C, then you dont know who you are going to have to sit by.
Deltaffindfw From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 1383 posts, RR: 1 Reply 7, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2390 times:
The great thing about airlines in the US is that you have the choice. If you don't want or need assigned seats, fly WN!!
Personally, as someone who has to fly once a week for business, I don't have the time to get there two hours in advance, wait in a line and rush on a plane to find a good seat. I don't mind paying a higher price for a ticket to ensure that I earn "status" on an airline to pick a better seat and board early.
Please don't berate me for my comments, because I understand that this is my opinion.
Goingboeing From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4875 posts, RR: 19 Reply 8, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 2388 times:
But nonrevman...if you're in group B or C and see the odiferous blob sitting in 12A, then you can head on back to 17C. On the other hand, if you've been assigned seat 12B, guess who your seatmate is?
Thadocta From Australia, joined Aug 2001, 396 posts, RR: 2 Reply 10, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 2158 times:
"But nonrevman...if you're in group B or C and see the odiferous blob sitting in 12A, then you can head on back to 17C. On the other hand, if you've been assigned seat 12B, guess who your seatmate is?"
Conversely, if I as a relatively frequent flyer with status get there five minutes before check-in closes and find that the only seat available is 75K, when my preferred seat is 14A, and whilst wandering down the back I see a drop-dead gorgeous babe sitting in 14B I will be spewing, particularly when the afore-mentioned odiferous blob is in 75B and I have to put up with it for the next 14 hours.
Airlinelover From United States of America, joined Jun 2001, 5580 posts, RR: 27 Reply 11, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 2119 times:
The best thing to see is when pax are assigned seats on an aircraft, and those seats don't exist.. A real problem for charter a/c, and something I saw all too often when I was a F/A..
People would be booked in an exit row where there was no row (in our A321), or would be booked rows that were not physically on the plane (On our A320) (I.E. row 35 if it only went to row 30)
Chris
Lets do some sexy math. We add you, subtract your clothes, divide your legs and multiply
WhyNotTu204 From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 95 posts, RR: 1 Reply 12, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 2083 times:
Fly a lot - never SWA - always get seat assigned - never a problem.
Aussie747 From Australia, joined Aug 2003, 1161 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 2032 times:
Experience being a QF Club memebr for some time, if I book a seat I am always guaranteed seat 39 Aor C or 39 H,K sometimes even at short notice(front economy emergency exit row in a 744)
I love it, nothing worse than running late and being allocated a seat like 70E for a long SYD-LHR trip.
Qantasclub From Australia, joined Nov 2003, 753 posts, RR: 3 Reply 14, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 2024 times:
Yeah, agree. I'm a QF member and i've been upgraded 4 times, TWICE on the SIN-LHR route. Just great! The trouble with asking for forward QF seats, though, is that in the forward Y class cabin, some of the windows are blotted out, so you can end up staring at a plastic panel for the whole trip.
So i usually ask for a seat down the back a bit further, now.
Qexonial From Australia, joined Nov 2003, 84 posts, RR: 0 Reply 15, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 1987 times:
Good day,
I had a very bad first experience with Air Asia, which uses unassigned seating arrangement. When the announcer announced that my flight was ready for boarding, every passenger was just squeezing towards the gate. And once the crews were ready to board the passengers, everyone was rushing through the gate like people running away from a monster or something. I was in the front though, but somehow got in the plane, like the tenth passenger. I'll try my best not to use any airline that uses unassigned seating.
Leskova From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 6075 posts, RR: 72 Reply 16, posted (9 years 6 months 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 1957 times:
I prefer assigned seats as well, especially for flights within the US - while booking my flights, I usually reserve my seats right away, so I know if I'm getting window or aisle - but on my flights around Hawaii last year, Hawaiian and Aloha didn't give out assigned seats.
What happened, and this happened on each and every one of my 6 flights (not to mention on about 25 of my 30 flights within the US last year), was that I was "randomly selected" for a secondary inspection prior to boarding.
Needless to say, when I got onto the plane, all good seats were taken, and taking pictures out of the window without having either the wing or engine on it was almost impossible...
Ssides From United States of America, joined Feb 2001, 4059 posts, RR: 23 Reply 17, posted (9 years 6 months 4 days 19 hours ago) and read 1861 times:
This is all a PREFERENCE issue. For example, if you're an AA Gold, Platinum or Executive Platinum, you can pre-select exit row and bulkhead seating. If I were in this category, I'd damn sure prefer assigned seats so I wouldn't have to show up a couple hours early just to get a seat with more legroom. The same is true for most network carriers.
I've also said this before, but you have to realize how open seating is really not much of a problem for Southwest. Although it has greatly expanded its longer-haul routes, most if its flights are still relatively short hops (DAL-HOU, AUS-HOU, ELP-PHX, FLL-TPA, BWI-MHT, STL-MDW, etc). For these hour flights, who cares if you are seated in the middle? I sure could care less. Now, I think this will grow into somewhat of a problem for its longer flights, but until then, so long as the passengers don't really care, why should anyone else?
SWAFA30 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 18, posted (9 years 6 months 4 days 18 hours ago) and read 1816 times:
"Welcome Aboard...Southwest Airlines has an open seating policy this means you can choose any seat you like. Once you have chosen your seat please step out of the aisle and allow the passenger boarding behind you to move past you to make their seat selection" And so it begins....
I've only been on this message board for a few months yet for some reason this topic keeps coming up. Now, I understand that the whole purpose of this forum is healthy debate. However at what point do we simply declare an impasse and stop beating a dead horse(my apologies to animal lovers).
It is patently obvious that the flying public falls into two distinct categories. Those who prefer or require assigned seating and those who do not. Why can't we just accept that members of neither group are likely to be persuaded to the other's point of view and just get on with life.
Doubtless, there are people who prefer assigned seating that are at times "forced" to fly SWA. Sometimes economics or other factors make the dreaded cattle call unavoidable. Largely these people are otherwise neutral on SWA they simply have a preference for assigned seat. They may tolerate the experience but no amount of arguing, browbeating or cajoling is going to make them like it. These people have every right to their opinion. So let's allow them to have it.
The "SWA Neutral" anti-open seating crowd does have a subset. This smaller group within a group has put open seating on top of a long laundry list of reasons why Southwest Airlines is the root of all evil. Open Seating is just the tip of the iceberg. We have all heard the arguments before. Southwest has driven down the standards of service....Southwest has costs thousands of high paying jobs by forcing the majors to seek concessions in order to compete...Southwest passengers are trailer trash and clog up the airports....Southwest has no fleet diversity....Southwest FF program is crap because they have no decent vacation destinations and no opportunity for upgrades....Southwest only flies to crummy secondary airports...Southwest has no IFE...Southwest routes are inconvenient and require too many stops....Southwest has no meal service....the list goes on and on and on. Even if we could convince these folks that Open Seating is a positive thing, once that argument was off the table there would be another already in the chamber and ready to fire. So why bother trying.
Are there not more interesting things in the wide world of aviation to talk about?
Goingboeing From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4875 posts, RR: 19 Reply 19, posted (9 years 6 months 4 days 15 hours ago) and read 1739 times:
SWAFA30 - nope...this topic crops up about once a week. Interesting thing is though, no matter how many times I ask, nobody seems to be able to tell me the benfits of sitting in their assigned center seat on transcon flights. It must happen, given the love affair with JetBlue and the TV sets in every seats...their "niche" had been transcon flights, and if the SEC reports are to be believed, they've been doing them with 85-90 percent load factors, so that tells me that there are a lot of folks must find something beneficial about an assigned center seat. Maybe it's because they are enthralled with Ron Popiel saying "set it and forget it" or watching Tony Little discuss the benefits of the latest piece of exercise equipment. Makes me wonder, if SWA popped for the TV sets, would that eliminate a large chunk of the dislike of open seating??
SprxflySWA From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 597 posts, RR: 0 Reply 20, posted (9 years 6 months 4 days 8 hours ago) and read 1653 times:
Well, obviously the last three words were not seen by many. They were to eliminate all the back and forth. There will always be yay/nay. I just wanted to place my two cents by themselves.
Now..about pro choice/pro life....... Just kidding!
GD727 From United States of America, joined Mar 2002, 925 posts, RR: 11 Reply 21, posted (9 years 6 months 4 days 8 hours ago) and read 1637 times:
Well sure, assigned seats don't work well if you wait until you get to the airport to have one assigned. I pick my seats when I book my tickets, months before the actual flight.
How many times have I found a person sitting in my assigned seat? Never. And if I found someone there, I'd simpally tell them to move.
Let me tell you something, I flew WN several months ago PVD-MCO-PVD. My family and I checked in TWO HOURS before the flight and just barely got the seats we wanted, meaning if two or three more people were in front of us, we would have had to scatter throughout the plane. I don't know about you people, but when I fly with my family, we like to sit together.
I don't mean any offense to WN by this. Other then their seating, WN is just about perfect IMO.
SWAFA30 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 22, posted (9 years 6 months 4 days 8 hours ago) and read 1600 times:
Well, obviously the last three words were not seen by many. They were to eliminate all the back and forth. There will always be yay/nay. I just wanted to place my two cents by themselves.
This is such a volatile issue there was no way people were going to just peruse this thread without commenting.
You probably would have had better luck with a thread entitled "Tomorrow's Winning Lotto Numbers...No Peeking"
Goingboeing From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 4875 posts, RR: 19 Reply 24, posted (9 years 6 months 4 days 8 hours ago) and read 1581 times:
just barely got the seats we wanted,
GD727 - there's an old saying that's familiar to us old farts - Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. MCO is going to be a bear pretty much because too many families figure that their 15 year old travelling with them constitutes "families with children" and will preboard. But the thing is this... and this is the advantage to open seating. If you bought a ticket tonight for a flight tomorrow, odds are good that you'll be assigned a middle seat...the guy who buys at the last minute...and who pays the highest fare...is stuck in a middle seat. T'aint necessarily so on Southwest.
And it really penalizes the folks on the other airlines...imagine if you booked 2 months in advance and they only showed middle seats for the low fare passengers? Would you book? Maybe not. And the other airlines can't/won't take the chance that you might not. So...you and the other leisure travellers get the "good" seats, leaving the crumbs for the folks paying top dollar.
25 SurfSlade: The only flight I took that was free seating was on ET form BKO to ADD. Personally, I prefer assigned seat.
26 Airdude66: What really pisses me off is when I have a pre-assigned seat on a short connection. I barely make the flight due to no fault of my own and someone is
27 SprxflySWA: I must admit, I have made the wrong seat error myself! On a Horizon F-28 from BOI to PDX, I had 9(?)E. Naturally,I assumed it was the middle of the 3
28 BigMac: I definately only like assigned seats. Once I got an assigned window seat in KLM's upper deck business class that was already occupied by someone that
29 PER744: Qantas Club membership is great for getting the seat you want. I always manage to get an exit row seat on flights between LAX and SYD, which is where
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