Everyone hates flying Southwest Airlines. The cattle call boarding, the undersized boarding areas, the frequent delays, and those awful Boeing 737’s. But hey, sometimes they’re half the price of other airlines. And, like most other people, I figure that if can save $200 on airfare on a one hour flight, I can spend the savings on something fun. Like a great bottle of wine. But the required price differential has increased after I suffered through the airline’s new boarding process a few times.
For the most part, Southwest’s problems are intrinsically tied to their cheap fares. The small boarding lounges save money in leases. 737’s are cheap to operate. And so on. But I finally have proof that the fundamental philosophy of operating an irritating airline is flat out intentional and not just the result of a quest for lower costs.
They have really outdone themselves with the new boarding process. Not content with the old, obnoxious A/B/C groups, the fiends have actually come up with something more complicated and annoying. Not only do the old A/B/C groups still exist, but each one is split in two — you can be in A (1-30), A (31-60), B (1-30), B (31-60), or C (1-30). Ah, but it gets better. Each of the two subgroups has a separate line, but of course with those small lounges, they have to reuse space, so you can’t line up for B (31-60) until A (31-60) has boarded.
You can tell whether you are supposed to have already boarded, be waiting in line, or be milling about waiting for the privilege of getting in line by little rotating signs that convert each of the two staging lines from A to B to C. So, once A (1-30) has boarded and they are working on A (31-60), the sign at the head of A (1-30) rotates so it is now B (1-30). Yes, seriously.
It gets even better. Each line is further divided into groups of five (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, and so on). And you are actually supposed to look at your ticket and find your group of five in your subsection of your section. In most airports, these signs are in the middle of the two staging lines, so on one side you have 16-20 and on the other side 46-50. So there are huge lines surrounded by people milling about who can’t line up yet, and you’re supposed to go wedge yourself into the middle of an existing line.
There are all sorts of things wrong with this. Foremost, in American culture at least, lines have social significance. It feels weird to go to an existing line and insert yourself towards the front, even if that’s where the signs and instructions indicate that that’s the thing to do.
Second, the process is so complex that most people in line don’t understand it. They see other people charging to the front and figure “hey, it’s a free for all”. And passengers who don’t speak English are utterly befuddled. The result is lots of milling and confusion and inadvertent cutting in line, standing in the wrong line, and so on.
Third, the way the two-sided 1-5, 6-10, etc, signs work, most new travelers don’t understand that there is a back side to the sign, and that if they are in, say, B (31-60) and B (1-30) is loading from the side closest to them, they need to dodge through the loading people to get to the other side where their sub-sub-queue is located.
The first time I went through this, I figured it was an attempt at efficiency gone horribly wrong. Surely some well-meaning person who had never flown before had come up with an utopian vision of how boarding could work, if only everyone were psychic and willing to spend a lot of time studying.
However, after I went through the new process a few more times, I became convinced that it is a brilliant but diabolical ploy conceived by an evil genius. Traveling is stressful enough, especially for infrequent travelers. And these are the people the scheme targets! They have no idea what’s going on, they see people cutting in line, and they think that Mom, Dad, and Junior have to be separated in line (and therefore on the plane) because their boarding passes have different numbers. And even frequent travelers have to cut in line and push through crowds. Everyone ends up angry and feeling socially awkward!
There are people out there devoted to making life a little better for other people. But, when you think about it, that’s easy. Smile at people, respond genuinely to casual questions, hold doors for people, and so on. But it takes real genius, and probably a great deal of energy, to take a process that already made people terribly unhappy and turn it into a living hell that makes people miserable. Southwest has a devious and evil person on their hands. And you just have to admire that kind of sheer sociopathy, even if it sucks to be at their mercy.
It beats having a bunch of people’s luggage lined up as place holders. “That’s my spot, I’m there.” “No, your luggage is there and you’re watching it from a distance” Too many altercations (just yelling, but none the less) happening and then also the people who wait until the boarding has started, then cut in line. It’s SWA’s attempt to still keep open seating. I actually like it, since you don’t need to get to the airport early and sit in line to get a decent spot.
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February 6th, 2008