A Modest Proposal: How Southwest Should Handle Seat Assignments for Families

More than a decade ago, my husband and I made a purposeful decision to switch the bulk of our flying to Southwest Airlines. After some family-unfriendly experiences on other airlines with our young daughter, we came to the realization that Southwest was better in so many ways for travelers with kids.

Flight crews have treated us with kindness, free checked bags save us a bundle, and open seating and family boarding allowed us to sit together when our kids were little without paying extra fees. It certainly didn't hurt either that Southwest flight options are convenient for us, as the airline has a major hub (ahem, focus city) at the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport (OAK) just about 15 minutes from our house.

Southwest Airlines Plane with Boarding Stairs

We've been quite happy with this decision over the years, even with a few major bumps in the road along the way.

But, the times they are a-changing at Southwest.

Editor's Note (March 11, 2025): Southwest Airlines just announced some major unexpected changes to several of the airline's core policies and fares effective May 28, 2025. These changes will necessitate multiple changes to numerous blog posts on this site in the coming weeks. To read the most up-to-date news while we await more details, please see this article on Southwest Airlines changes in 2025.

Southwest Seat Assignments Coming Soon

Southwest has been in the news a lot the last few months facing profitability problems and staving off corporate takeovers from activist investors. In response to some of the turmoil, Southwest just announced radical changes to its policies and practices coming next year.

Most notably, the airline famous for cattle call open seating will be moving to seat assignments.

Some superfans are incensed. On the flip side, some air travelers who wouldn't fly Southwest without an assigned seat or an extra legroom option will now be open to trying it.

Personally, I don't feel super-strongly about the change. I suspect some of my travels will be more comfortable with seat assignments, but I also suspect I'll be nostalgic for the egalitarian nature of the airline's good old days.

Many of the seat assignment details are not yet fully spelled out, but here's what we know so far:

Passengers who book Southwest's cheapest Wanna Get Away Fares will not get complimentary seat selection. Southwest will automatically assign them a seat prior to departure.
Higher fare classes will include complimentary seat selection. Which types of seats will be included with each fare class is not fully revealed yet.
Southwest is adding new extra legroom seats to the front of its aircraft with 3 to 5 additional inches of space (newer 737-800 and 737-MAX-8 aircraft will only have 3 inches more, but Southwest's older 737-700's will have 5 inches more). Extra legroom seats will be available for purchase.
Southwest's elite flyers will be able to access extra legroom seats for free. A-List members can select extra legroom seats for free within 48 hours of a flight's departure, subject to availability. A-List Preferred members can select extra legroom seats for free at the time of booking a flight.
These new seating assignments will be available to book in mid-2025 for flights starting in early 2026.

If this seems pretty familiar, it is. This is pretty much in line with what other airlines offer.

How I Hope Southwest Will Handle Seat Assignments for Family Travelers

Southwest Airlines Ticket Counters at SFO Airport

But Southwest has always done things a little differently, and I'm hopeful that it will continue to find ways to distinguish itself from competitors even as things change. This is particularly my hope when it comes to practices that help make the flying experience for families a little less stressful.

Southwest has already made clear that it will keep one of the policies in place that most benefit family travelers: free checked bags. Any parent with babies and toddlers knows how hard it can be to travel with all of the necessary gear in just a carry-on. Every other airline in the United States charges for checking a bag, but Southwest has doubled down on its "bags fly free" commitment.

With checked bags safe for now, what I'm most interested in is how upcoming seating changes will affect passengers boarding a Southwest flight with kids in tow. One thing that has been lovely about flying Southwest with young children was that its unique boarding and seating policies made it much easier - and cheaper - than other airlines for parents to sit together with their kids.

A quick refresher: Southwest's current open boarding process assigns passengers to three groups: A, B, and C. Passengers with elite status (A-List, A-List Preferred) and those who pay for the privilege (Business Select fares, passengers who purchase Early Bird) get to board earlier. Southwest has open seating so passengers who board earlier get to snag better seats like exit rows and aisle and windows in the front of the plane.

Families have a special preboarding position in Southwest's lineup. Anyone traveling with a child ages 0-6 can board during the Family Boarding period between groups A and B. This is early enough in the boarding process that there are still full rows on Southwest's planes completely open for the taking, usually in the back half of the aircraft. The result is that families get to choose seats together on Southwest.

While it's not a 100% guarantee, I've personally taken hundreds of flights on Southwest with my kids when they were in the applicable age range and I've always been able to secure contiguous seats for all of us thanks to this practice.

Traveling parents are rightfully worried that Southwest's seating changes will upend this family-friendly situation. Depending on what Southwest does, the airline may force them into the same game of chicken that the other airlines currently play with family travelers: pay for a seat assignment or risk having some or all of your family members scattered about all over the plane.

To be fair, many domestic carriers have gotten better about not separating parents from young kids. Under U.S. Department of Transportation pressure, several have adopted guidelines that promise that young children will be able to sit with at least one adult in their traveling party. But there are few guarantees. Many families, including mine when we fly other airlines, balk and pay extra for seats together instead of waiting to see what the airline will assign on day of travel.

What could Southwest do to continue to make things better for families than its competitors? Free seat assignments for travelers with young kids.

My proposal is that Southwest take those families who are current eligible for family boarding (ones with kids ages 0-6) and let them pre-book assigned seats at no additional charge. These don't have to be good seats. In fact, they could be the worst seats on the plane. What matters to families with young kids is just that the seats are together. And having that certainty before the day of travel helps families prepare and provides peace of mind.

In fact, Southwest could even block the last few rows of the plane for just this purpose. This would be a win-win because the cost savings would keep families happy while also keeping the chaos of baby and toddler travelers more contained in one section of the plane away from business travelers paying more to sit up front.

From the perspective of assigning seats to other passengers, free pre-booked seats for family travelers won't disrupt the seating charts at all. Why? Because families with young kids book contiguous seats (including middle seats which seem absurdly punitive to charge for, in my humble opinion). This is not the case for solo travelers who tend to book aisle and window seats, creating a hot mess of a seating chart with only scattered middle seats free for other passengers to fill.

From an IT perspective, the implementation shouldn’t be that difficult either. Everyone who purchases an airline ticket already has to input their date of birth. Southwest could simply make free seat assignments available to all bookings that include a child under the age of six on the day of the flight as part of the purchase process. I’m sure there will be some exceptional cases that require manual handling, such as when tickets for family members are purchased separately, but the process could be easily automated for the vast majority of family travelers who book the whole family together on a single reservation.

So if you're reading this Southwest... please consider families with young kids in your future plans for seat assignments. That's not my family anymore, but I know how much your policies helped me when my kids were younger. You've been good to passengers with little ones in the past. A little generosity in the future will go a long way to continuing to distinguish yourself from other airlines and building loyal customers for life. Just like my family.