Southwest Airlines will Evaluate Assigned Seating

Southwest Airlines will pilot several methods of assigned seating (subscription only) in the next few months to determine if they should permanently give up the “cattle call” system that now gives them some of the fastest turnaround times in the industry.

“We want to make sure that we have studied all the possibilities and aspects of assigned seating before we make any change to what has been a very successful formula for the past 35 years,” Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly told The Wall Street Journal. “This evaluation is an important step to determine the feasibility of assigned seating, but this is only a test.”

No matter what the airline determines, it’s unlikely that they could integrate assigned seating into their operations nationwide before 2008.