Southwest??

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bailey5697

New Member
Original Poster
We are flying roundtrip from Islip (Long Island, NY) to Orlando for $243 a ticket on Southwest. We found cheaper on Jet Blue and Spirit, but only by about $20 a ticket and we had to go into JFK to and Laguardia (I think Spirit was only Laguardia)
I have heard that Southwest is like riding on a flying bus. There is no assigned seating and you have to get there early and stand on line to get a seat together. We are traveling with 2 children, so I'm hoping that we can get some sort of pre-boarding courtesy.
Has anyone flown Southwest? What did you think? Is it terrible or is it just another plane ride?
 
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DVCgirl49

New Member
WE HAVE USED SOUTHWEST EVERY TIME WE HAVE GONE TO FLORIDA> WHILE IT IS TRUE THAT THERE ARE NO ASSIGNED SEATS< THEY DO HAVE PREBOARDING FOR PARENTS WITH SMALL CHILDREN< DISABLED< ETC> >>>>SORRY FOR THE CAPS LOCK< MY KEYBOARD SEEMS TO HAVE TAKEN A MIND OF IT"S OWN>
 
MinnieFan

MinnieFan

Member
I've flown it several times but it has been a while and as far as I can remember they do not have any pre-boarding for children. Your best bet is to get there early, that is when they hand out the boarding passes. You board in groups and just pick a seat. It is first come first serve. One thing to be aware of, you may think you are one of the first people to get on, but there may be a lot of people left on from a lay-over. Just be ready to split up, 1 adult with 1 child. That way if you can't find seats together it won't be a problem. Have FUN!!!
 
mandib

mandib

Member
We fly SWA everytime we go down because we have frequent flier miles. Although you do not have assigned seats there IS pre-boarding!
 
Bagheera

Bagheera

New Member
On our last flight, I paid specific attention, and the announcement said that there was pre-boarding for families with children under 5. (Since our next trip is right after my son's 5th birthday, we'll squeeze through anyway.)

That said, we also saw a family with 3 kids (youngest probably about 6 or 7) that preboarded, and nobody said anything.

If you get there early enough to get boarding passes in seating group A, you should be fine no matter what.

Of course, if your kids are young enough that they fly in a car seat, you're going to pre-board anyway. Just make sure that the car seat goes in the window seat, or else the person on the far side will never be able to get out. :D
 
Figaro

Figaro

New Member
Hi Fellow LI'ers!

We just flew SWA in Jan 2003 with our 3 year old out of MacArthur airport. It is definately worth the extra $20 to fly out of there rather than JFK or LGA.

They did have a preboard for people with children under 5 and people that required extra assistance. You still have to get there early because we found that there were almost as many people preboarding as there were waiting in the regular line. Plus you do have the people that try to preboard with the entire extended family. The rule is supposed to be just parents and the kids, but we honestly saw a family with mom, dad, 4 kids, 2 grandmas, granadpa, uncles and aunts all preboard with 1 kid under 5 yrs old. No one said anything to them in LI. But we did see something similar to that in MCO, and they were told only parents and kids. Depends on who's working.

The employees of SWA seemed to be much more friendly than any other airline we've flown with.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
 

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