I think it would really suck if they got rid of open seating. My dad has flown for Southwest since about 1982 so I've flown on Southwest a lot. Everytime I fly on another airline I'm amazed by how long it takes people to get to their seats. If you read Nuts they explain why the open seating policy is so good. It lets each plane fly an extra leg maybe once everyother day. This translates into having to buy a few less planes. Which translates into millions of dollars in savings each year.
My dad told me that the reason they are so overbooked right now is that they can't get enough airplanes to cover their routes. Apparently they're running about 70-80 percent capacity. Also to try to relieve this they've raised ticket prices 4 or 5 times already this year to try to get lower capacity. Instead of less bookings they've had more. It completely defies logic.
Personally I'd rather not pay very much for my ticket than get an assigned seat, or a tv to watch. I flew Jetblue a few weeks ago and I thought it was a pretty good Airline, the only difference I could see between them and swa was the tv in the back of the seat. The tv was pretty cool, but I'd rather read on a flight so it didn't do much for me.
Does anyone besides me remember when Southwest still had the big plastic boarding tickets. Those were the days, first come first serve. We would always get a decent seat non-reving. Or does anyone remember the lounges, flying backwards was pretty cool.
