I waited a couple days to cool off, but I’m still annoyed.
I’ve been extremely loyal to Southwest. I live near BWI, fly constantly for work, have both personal and business cards, pay for upgrades, early boarding, the whole thing. I genuinely felt like I was the type of customer they wanted.
On a recent late redeye that was only about half full, I paid for seat 2D with extra legroom. When I boarded, the overhead bins above row 2 were already full. Flight attendants had their own bags up there, and other passengers had filled the forward bins. I was told to put my bag above row 8.
Fine. Annoying, but fine.
Since row 8 was empty, I asked if I could just sit there under my bag. I was told no because of “weight and balance.” On a half empty flight. That explanation felt like nonsense.
I asked to gate check my bag instead so I wouldn’t have to fight upstream during deplaning. They said no, I should have done that earlier in the terminal. How would I know there’d be no bin space over my paid seat?
So I sat in row 2 and then had to wait for almost everyone to deplane before I could go back to row 8 and grab my bag.
It’s not even about the inconvenience. It’s the principle. If I’m paying extra and giving them a ton of business, why am I getting inflexible rules and made up sounding excuses?
Honestly feels like Southwest has lost what made them good.
0