BALTIMORE — Southwest Airlines on Thursday announced a couple big changes.
For the first time in its 50+ year history, the airline giant will begin assigning passenger seats, moving away from their signature open seating model.
"The research is clear and indicates that 80% of Southwest Customers, and 86% of potential Customers, prefer an assigned seat," the company said in a press release. "When a Customer elects to stop flying with Southwest and chooses a competitor, open seating is cited as the number one reason for the change."
That's not the only changes Southwest is making to their cabin layouts.
The airline's also planning to offer premium seating with extra legroom, which once implemented would entail roughly one-third of seats across their fleet.
While those changes will surely impact travelers across the country and abroad, the airline is introducing another new twist to flight scheduling largely affecting BWI Airport.
Beginning on Valentine's Day 2025, Southwest will fly non-stop overnight into Baltimore from three major West Coast airports in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix.
Bookings are already available on Southwest's website.
"Redeye flying, coupled with continued reductions in turn-time through new technologies and procedures, is expected to provide incremental revenue and cost savings, enabling Southwest to fund nearly all new capacity over the next three years without incremental aircraft capital deployment," the airline said.
