Flying Southwest is a challenge. There are no assigned seats – it’s every man, woman, and child for himself or herself in trying to score exit-row seats and avoid the dreaded middle seat.
Southwest has attempted to attract business travelers with a first-boarding priority, but you do pay for that privilege.
However, priority boarding FOLLOWS the pre-boarders. The pre-borders are those who “need extra time going down the jetway,” as the official announcement goes. Business travelers began to notice that there are often 30 or more pre-boarders on flights.
In its infinite wisdom, the federal government has regulations that require airlines to provide pre-boarding to those with disabilities who “self-identify at the gate.” Southwest does ask several questions in screening the aforesaid self-identifiers, but will not disclose the questions. Southwest also prohibits pre-boarders from sitting in exit row seats. Would that be a policy or is it just that one cannot claim a disability and still qualify for the exit row?? If you can’t walk down the jetway you probably cannot hurl an exit door open and get the slide going.
The bottom line? Passengers are gaming the system to get better seats and overhead space. Business travelers and others who pay extra for priority are starting to take photos. Reddit is afire with anger over the fake pre-boarders. As Jeffrey Colvin has written, “Just assume that when there is a reward system involved at some point there will be gaming.”
In the Barometer’s field we call them amoral technicians. They get ahead by finding loopholes and capitalizing on them. Put a loose-goosey regulation in place and they will maximize opportunities. You find them operating in the complex rules on financial reporting — it’s how we get accounting fraud, eventually. You find them in Fit-Bit wearers. They get in their steps by putting their Fit-Bit in a sock in the dryer. They cross the gore line to cut ahead when entering the freeway. They take cuts in line because line-cutting is not often regulated.
Hence, Southwest flights are loaded with gamers — amoral technicians who have found a loophole. They enjoy a fine seat and overhead space on all their Southwest flights — without paying an extra fee.
