If you’re preparing to travel in 2025, there are some changes with air travel you need to know.
Southwest fliers may remember that back in September, it was announced that MAJOR changes were coming to the way Southwest boards their flights. For years, Southwest has been known as the airline where you don’t have to worry about booking a seat ahead of time unless you want to pay extra. Some fliers told us that was the reason they always chose to fly with the airline, while others mentioned it was a big reason why they stayed away. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, Southwest’s changes are coming, and they’re coming soon in 2025 — here’s when you can expect your experience to start changing on board.
According to Yahoo! Finance, at a recent Goldman Sachs investor conference CEO Bob Jordan announced that some of these new changes will begin as soon as early 2025. One of the more exciting offerings travelers are looking forward to are the extra-legroom seats, which is part of the mission to eliminate the open seating model that the company has used for 5 decades.
Southwest is apparently putting hundreds of millions of dollars into these changes in attempt to alleviate the pressure put on the company by activist investor, Elliott Management who encouraged them to improve their financial performance. These new seats are expected to be seen on flights starting in early 2025, however they won’t become available for purchase until later in 2025 due to the airline “flying the updated product before it begins selling it in order to have it on a critical mass of planes.”
In addition to extra legroom seats, Southwest is also going to be implementing updates to more than 60 of Southwest’s technology systems, the switch to assigned seating, red-eye flights, and international partnerships. All of these are expected to be introduced throughout the later half of 2025 into 2026 at this time. Specifically, Bob Jordan stated that, “Selling the new products [is] back half of 2025, and operating the new products [in] the first half of 2026, all of that is on track.”
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How do you feel about these Southwest changes? Tell us in the comments!
Open seating was the major reason I’d stayed away from this airlines. They used to be cheaper to fly but today I think you can do as good on the big three. Watched their boarding process last year as I waiting on my American flight , the passenger that paid for A15 loaded about number 45 after 12 wheel chairs, military and others went first. Assigned seating can,t come soon enough.