Southwest seating: Love it or hate it?

— -- Announced changes in Southwest Airlines' fabled "cattle call" boarding process brought swift and strong reaction Wednesday from travelers.

"Hurray for Southwest," says William Krueger of Louisville, Tenn. "Again, they put the customer first."

Not so wild about the proposed change was frequent-traveler Mark Nolte of Philadelphia, who never much cared for Southwest's boarding practices anyway.

"I would rather walk cross-country than fly Southwest," Nolte says. "That whole process of seating is absolutely a mess."

At Southwest headquarters in Dallas Wednesday morning, CEO Gary Kelly made the giant discounter's long-awaited announcement about the future of its unusual practice of letting passengers grab the best seat available once they get on board.

Open seating stays, Kelly said. But starting in early November, Southwest will make a change that will eliminate the long lines that form at the airport gate as passengers divide themselves into the A, B and C boarding groups.

The boarding groups stay, too, but each passengers will, at check-in, be assigned a number. The number gives each member of the boarding groups a position in line for boarding the plane, eliminating the need to start standing in line early.

That such a tweak in procedures should prompt strong reactions shouldn't be surprising. Southwest boards more passengers than any of its competitors. It carried 96.3 million passengers in 2006, counting twice those who made connections between two Southwest flights. When the distance those passengers traveled is factored in, Southwest is the USA's No. 5 airline.

Frequent-traveler Christine Scott of Gaithersburg, Md., says she finds Southwest's open-seating system stressful, and the pending change will only add to that. It makes even more important the need to check in online 24 hours ahead of time to avoid a bad seat, she says.

If Southwest really wants to do customers a favor, Scott suggests, why not just give them a seat at booking time? For now, Scott says, she's happy paying a slightly higher fare on another carrier so that she can avoid worrying where she'll sit on the plane.

Some people expect the change will make the boarding process more relaxing and encourage them to fly Southwest more.

Traveler Mary Kretsinger of Emporia, Kan., looks forward to the change.

"Having a number along with my, hopefully, A boarding pass will be one step closer to making me actually feel like I have my own seat," she says.

More changes ahead?

Fast-growing Southwest is an airline in transition, and the change announced Wednesday certainly won't be the last to generate debate among the carrier's fans and foes.

CEO Kelly and other Southwest officials, responding to questions at a news conference, pointedly left open the possibility of a second big change in the boarding process in the not-too-distant future: letting passengers who pay more get a better number in the boarding line.

Such a change also could generate additional revenue for a low-cost carrier now dealing like never before with escalating costs.

While many high-paying business travelers have the ability to book travel in advance and check in online up to 24 hours before flying, many still value the ability to make a last-minute decision to fly. But under the boarding process announced Wednesday, last-minute travelers on Southwest would be among the last allowed onboard and likely would have to sit in a middle seat, even if they paid the full fare. That's true of the current process, too.

"Stay tuned," Kelly said when pressed about ways to generate incremental revenue and reward high-fare-paying travelers by providing preferential boarding to travelers who pay the most.

Growing challenges

Southwest's growth, its maturing workforce — now the highest paid in the industry in several job categories — and high oil prices are threatening to unwind Southwest's biggest traditional advantage: its ability to restrain its operating costs.

That's why Southwest, which long has prided itself on being the domestic market's low-price leader, has pushed through at least nine fare increases in the last 20 months and no longer has the lowest fares all the time on its routes.

To meet its challenges, Southwest is in the midst of a major set of changes in the way it manages and markets its services. In addition to changing its boarding process, it's changing its frequent-flier program, its schedules, its fare structure and its advertising.

It is also changing its internal process to more effectively compete for big contracts with corporations that generate high volumes of business travel.

A planned new computer system coming on line late this year will give Southwest, for the first time, the ability to compete in market categories it could not easily compete in before. It will, for example, be able to sell tickets on international flights.

Accordingly, Kelly has made no secret of his expectation that Southwest eventually will launch service to Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean. He also has said Southwest likely will begin selling international tickets via code-share partnerships with foreign carriers.

A more important new capability coming on line next winter will be enhanced "revenue management" capabilities. That lets the carrier tighten the availability of cheaper seats on flights that are in demand with high-paying business travelers or make more cheap seats available on flights that have little business-travel demand.