Travelers on Southwest Airlines will get an assigned seat and have the opportunity to pay for seats offering extra legroom, under sweeping changes the low-cost carrier announced Thursday.

The Dallas-based airline also said it will begin offering redeye flights starting on Valentine’s Day as part of efforts to improve the customer experience and financial performance.

Since its inception more than 50 years ago, Southwest was known for its open seating policy, in which passengers were grouped into boarding zones and chose any available seat once they got on board. The airline allowed passengers to pay extra to get a better boarding position and check in a day before their flight.

But now, Southwest will assign seats and give travelers the option to buy seats with more legroom. The change comes after the airline found that 80% of current customers and 86% of potential customers prefer an assigned seat, and that open seating was the main reason travelers chose a competing airline.

The change is expected to be implemented next year.

Southwest also plans to retrofit its planes to make about a third of its seats offer extra legroom, another amenity customers prefer, the airline said. The seats will cost extra, the airline said.

“Moving to assigned seating and offering premium legroom options will be a transformational change that cuts across almost all aspects of the Company,” said Bob Jordan, president, CEO and vice chairman of the airline’s board of directors. “Although our unique open seating model has been a part of Southwest Airlines since our inception, our thoughtful and extensive research makes it clear this is the right choice.”

Southwest has a small presence at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The airline served 1,693,000 passengers and operated just over 14,600 flights in the Twin Cities last year, according to the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which operates the airport.

That compares with 20,886,971 passengers who arrived or departed on 145,600 flights operated by Delta Air Lines, the dominant carrier at MSP.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *