Southwest Airlines Debuts Major Change to Improve Comfort
Southwest Airlines has announced a big change to improve passenger comfort.
"To prepare for assigned and premium seating, Southwest Employees will retrofit aircraft to accommodate new, Extra Legroom seats," an April 16 news release from Southwest says. "This large-scale effort will touch every single plane in the Southwest fleet between April 30 and the end of the year and tangibly paves the way for selling assigned seating in third quarter 2025 and operating in first quarter 2026."
The first plane with the extra legroom seating will be available to customers on May 1, 2025, according to the press release.
"Southwest Technical Operations Teams at maintenance bases in Denver, Phoenix, Houston, and Atlanta will complete the work, with the first retrofit aircraft planned to enter service May 1," the release says. "These retrofits will occur alongside other cabin upgrades, such as the installation of in-seat power and larger overhead bins and will run alongside regular maintenance to uphold the Safety and quality of the Southwest fleet."
The seating chart released by Southwest shows the extra legroom seats will be in the first five rows of the aircraft, and there will also be three additional rows with the perk.
"This retrofit process is part of a phased approach to prepare the entire fleet for assigned and premium seating and will start with -800 and MAX 8 aircraft," Southwest explained. "This process re-pitches existing seats to adjust spacing between rows to create room for Extra Legroom seating. Later this summer (and pending vendor capacity and material availability), Extra Legroom seats onboard will feature visual indicators to differentiate them. After the summer, the retrofit process will begin on the 737-700 aircraft."
Back in 2024, Southwest announced its plans to extend legroom.
"Southwest will offer a premium, extended legroom portion of the cabin that research shows many Customers strongly prefer. While specific cabin layout details are still in design, Southwest expects roughly one-third of seats across the fleet to offer extended legroom, in line with that offered by industry peers on narrowbody aircraft," that news release said.
At the same time, the airline announced it was moving to assigned seating.
"Moving to assigned seating and offering premium legroom options will be a transformational change that cuts across almost all aspects of the Company," said Bob Jordan, President, CEO, & Vice Chairman of the Board.
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