[ad_1]
Southwest’s casual policy towards preboarding has led to growing complaints as passengers misuse the system. The airline, which does not assign seats, allows passengers requiring “a little extra time” for boarding to go first, a policy that is now frequently exploited, say regular travellers. Complaints centre around dishonest passengers misrepresenting their situations to achieve earlier boarding. On platforms such as Reddit’s Southwest board, increasingly impassioned discussions have led to pleas for courtesy. The problem arises due to the difficulty in ascertaining the validity of claims for early boarding. Consequently, dishonest passengers can manipulate the policy to beat the queue. However, Southwest maintains that many disabilities are invisible and, as such, the company cannot challenge the legitimacy of early boarding requests. Airlines are federally obliged to offer preboarding to any passenger who identifies themselves as needing it.
Therefore, even when an individual’s claim appears doubtful, if preboarding is refused, they still have the option to join the family boarding group. This group boards the plane immediately after group A, which is mainly made up of frequent flyers and passengers who have paid additional fares for early boarding. Consequently, this situation leaves fewer choices for loyal flyers, resulting in diminished loyalty toward Southwest. For instance, Mike Worley, a fundraising executive, disclosed that he now makes greater use of Delta Airlines, partially due to better order during boarding.
The situation has also been trivialised by Southwest executives, leading to increasingly reproachful discussions among passengers on Reddit and even the posting of photos of supposed culprits in an endeavor to disgrace them publicly. This issue has prompted Reddit moderators to vet posts relating to pre-boarding for inappropriate or insensitive language.
Nevertheless, passengers with genuine needs for the facility have welcomed the scrutiny of the forum. Going forward, ideas offered to remedy the situation, like making preboarders sit further inside the plane and leaving the front rows available, remain unexplored by the airline. Crucially, there have been recent discussions about possibly assigning seats which could be a long-term strategy for benefiting customers and enhancing profits.
This preboarding issue is not an isolated case. In April, Disney declared lifetime bans for anyone found exploiting their Disability Access Service to gain bonuses, including prioritised access to rides.
[ad_2]
