Southwest Airlines is a significant U.S. airline that doesn't use assigned seating.
Instead, you line up at the gate in ascending order of your boarding assignment, then board the aircraft and select your choice available seat in a first-come, first-served fashion.
Each boarding group can hold up to 60 people.
In general, the Southwest boarding procedure is not as unpleasant as it would sound.
For families and other individuals who are unable to reserve seats together in advance, it is at the very least an unconventional strategy that may cause worry.
In order to ensure that parents and young children can sit together, Southwest has long offered time for family boarding (for those with children 6 and under) between its A and B boarding groups.
This helps avoid a scenario where, toward the end of boarding, youngsters are only left with middle seats as an option.
Southwest is currently testing a significant change in the family boarding process.
According to a number of reports, including my own boarding experience at Dallas Love Field (DAL) in late 2022, some Southwest airline boarding announcements are making use of an enlarged family boarding age range that includes kids as young as 13 years old.
On my Southwest Airlines flight in the latter half of 2022, that wasn't the only boarding modification I saw.
Before the numbered boarding assignments were called, the preboarding procedure included an invitation for the youngest flyers, up to age 6, to board.
This proposed test or any modifications to the family boarding procedure were not confirmed by Southwest Airlines.
According to a corporate spokesperson, the corporation claims that the boarding policy still applies to children aged 6 and younger who board with either group A or B.
The published policy as it is now puts parents of children as young as 7 in a difficult situation.
These families must hope that they can check in quickly enough to acquire a good boarding slot because their children are too old for family boarding.
The alternatives: They could pay for A1-A15 guaranteed early boarding positions, which sell for $30–60 each, when available, or they could buy the airline's EarlyBird Check-In, which starts at $15 per passenger.
The airline has previously disclosed that it is undertaking a focused trial of early boarding for children 6 and younger, even though it did not confirm testing of any wider eligible family boarding age range.
It makes sense to let the youngest age group board before the rest of the passengers because they are more likely to be carrying strollers and car seats and will therefore take longer to board.
Families taking part in the early boarding in the Atlanta trial are required to choose seats on the exit row.
This should allay some worries about young families gaining early access to the first few rows, which are typically favored when other passengers paid extra to board before them.
Only time will tell if the extended family boarding age ranges are used on additional Southwest Airlines flights.
It's important to note that the airline would be able to easily comply with a Department of Transportation notice sent in June 2022 that required airlines to keep families with children ages 13 and under seated together without charging extra.
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