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Southwest Airlines Community

Pre-Boarding rules

Annepsencik
Explorer C

I commute every other week for work and thus have the opportunity to observe preboarding on a consistent basis.

I have a couple of suggestions: 

 

SW should limit the number of persons able to board with a pre-board to 1 person only. I just watched 7 perfectly able bodied people board with 1 wheel chair. Business customers have paid extra for being able to board first. I was A-5 and boardedIn the 20th position. There was only 1 person in a wheelchair and all the others could walk unassisted. 

 

If you pre-board you are required to be the last person to get off the plane. When schedules are tight or there are unavoidable flight delays, business travelers are rushing. Waiting  for a wheelchair and/or a disabled person to deplane just makes more people late for connecting flights. 

 

i fully agree with preboarding. SW just needs rules associated with the policy.

1 REPLY 1

Re: Pre-Boarding rules

elijahbrantley
Aviator A

This has been extensively discussed on this site, and I doubt we will see much change around the preboarding process. I am right there with you in that I travel frequently, but when I find myself growing impatient, I always remind myself that we can’t always see a disability or know the whole situation.

 

To your first suggestion, I really like the idea of limiting the number of folks that can board with a preboarder. Given that I am AList Preferred and cannot board with my family unless I take a worse boarding spot, it does bother me when a large family boards with a preborder. I don’t know where to draw the line, but it is frustrating. 

 

To your second suggestion, this seems problematic because it a) would complicate (slow) the process of folks getting off the plane, making flight attendants have to police what could be volatile situations and b) punishes folks with legitimate preboarding needs. Across my hundreds of SW flights over many years, I can honestly say that I have never lost more than about a minute of my time waiting for someone to get in a wheelchair. Making wheelchair-bound passengers wait would add unnecessary stress and shame. 

 

Just thinking out loud here...

-A List, Companion Pass holder