Here's why Southwest is assigning seats — and what it means for customers

Southwest will start selling assigned seats, marking a major shakeup of a signature policy that has set the low-cost carrier apart from airlines for half a century. The new policy, announced Thursday, will make flying Southwest look and feel remarkably different for customers. 

The shift will affect how customers of the discount carrier select seats and board planes. Southwest passengers, including longtime fans of the open seating policy, will also be able to choose different types of seats for a price, including those offering more legroom. These changes could affect ticket costs across the board, according to experts, although Southwest has not addressed pricing or indicated that regular seat costs will change. 

Some experts are cheering the move, saying it amounts to an improvement for both passengers and the airline. 

"Southwest's decision to start assigning seats and plan to add extra-legroom seats prove an old dog can learn new tricks," Henry Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, told CBS News. "It will make their flights more orderly and comfortable. And it should also improve the airline's bottom line as well."

Southwest will begin selling tickets with assigned seats beginning in 2025. The airline will reveal additional details around changes to the flight boarding process in September. Here are three ways flying Southwest could change. 

Assigned seats

Southwest is ending its open seating policy, in which customers find a cabin seat on a first-come, first-serve basis. When the changes go into effect next year, customers will purchase tickets with assigned seating, eliminating some of the stress associated with the current boarding process. 

"It's a pretty big change for Southwest, which always had an open seating system, and you had to run into the cabin and try to find the seat you want," Clint Henderson, managing editor of The Points Guy, told CBS MoneyWatch. 

Henderson said this turned off some business travelers like himself from choosing to fly Southwest, and he predicted the change could attract a new crop of customers to the airline.

"Many business travelers don't want to fight for a seat and deal with the drama that sometimes entails," Henderson said. 

Tensions can run high on airplanes too, with testy passengers quibbling over limited and sometimes shared real estate.

"Since the pandemic, airline passengers may be less cordial and less amicable," said airline customer experience analyst Marbue Brown. "There are certainly benefits to environments where there is no ambiguity about who owns a seat."

Some seats will have more leg room

In addition to assigned seats, Southwest will introduce premium seating, offering passengers extended legroom on one-third of a cabin's seats. 

Southwest already lets customers pay to be first in line to board aircraft, "but this is a much bigger change now, with premium seats available for purchase," Going.com's Keyes said.  

The airline is likely responding to travelers' penchant for more premium travel experiences following the pandemic, according to Keyes. "The demand is for premium economy, business class and better seats, which Southwest doesn't have to offer," he said. 

Southwest's seats already offer more legroom than traditional carriers', which has been a selling point for the airline. They come with 32 inches of space, versus the industry standard of 30-31 inches. It's possible Southwest's new cabin configuration could shrink its current standard of 32 inches of space, some experts said.

"They haven't announced the new cabin design, but the most likely outcome is we're going to see that 32 inches of legroom to start to shrink for main cabin, and for it to be more like 31 or 30," Scott Keyes, founder of Going.com, told CBS MoneyWatch. "That's normal for people who are used to flying American or United, but cramped for people who fly Southwest." 

Price changes

The new cabin configurations could drive up ticket prices across the board because Southwest's aircraft might contain fewer number of total seats, industry analysts said. On the other hand, the dramatic policy changes could be price-neutral, depending on how Southwest redesigns its plane cabins. 

"Some folks will pay more for extra legroom, and, based on how you reconfigure planes, you might not have to raise prices on other seats," Brown said. 

What remains to be seen is whether Southwest will introduce a bare-bones, basic economy-type offering. 

Currently, all tickets come with free checked bags and free changes. "But might they start to offer an economy package that includes more restrictions on baggage? That's something we'll have to wait and see," Keyes said.