Mark the new Southwest’s additional leg space from May 1 – No premium costs until 2026
Southwest Airlines reorganizes its product with additional seats on the legs, less leg space at the back of the plane on larger planes, Flying Redeye and partnerships with other airlines. They will charge for checkered bags and expire travel credits. Rapid award points have been devalued.
Overall, the Southwest differs from other airlines. They become the same – but less than. They charge WiFi, and this does not work as well as on other airlines. They do not have siege file entertainment screens. They lack standard power outlets. There are no salons and no first class cabin. They do not fly in the long term, and they also have no world partnerships that allow you to use your points worldwide.
However, for a few months, Southwest Airlines will offer many exceptional passengers, before dropping the hammer. Here’s how to take advantage of the window – which stems from the transition from the airline to offer premium seats they can sell, but they have to install the seats on their fleet before they can start loading.
Southwest plans to make seats assignable in early 2026 – but these seats will start flying in a few weeks.
Southwest cannot sell premium seats as long as they do not convert enough planes to ensure that the plane operating a given flight will have the new seats. They convert planes throughout 2025, but it will be 2026 flights that have these attributed seats.
This means that you become more and more likely throughout 2025 to end up with an airplane that has superior quality seats, but where seats are still available for free depending on the first -year, first served principle. You go on board and you can sit on a seat with an additional leg space.
- Additional seats for the legs are starting to enter service on May 1 or to May 1 in May, as indicated by Travel every week.
- They will not be offered for sale before the end of September. And it will only be for flights from the first quarter of 2026.
- Until now, and for the rest of 2025, if you get an airplane with an additional leg room, you get these seats for free.
You will have the best blow on this, of course, if you have an early boarding position (because Southwest does not yet attribute seats) and you know where to look for.
Southwest updates the seats of its Boeing 737-800 and Max 8 aircraft, and moving in its small 737 in the fall. They will update up to 150 planes per month overnight in Houston, Phoenix, Denver and Atlanta. Note that “at the end of the summer, the Southwest plans to start fixing visual indicators to differentiate extra-light seats.” Until then, be alert for them!
Dark blue with yellow seats has an additional leg space. These are the front of the Boeing 737-800 and Max 8 planes in this illustration.
Between these front seats and the exit lines will be sold as “favorite” – they do not have an additional leg space, but will cost more because they are closer to the front and you do not waste as much time getting out of the plane at the end of the flight.
The “standard” seats have no additional leg space and will be at the back of the plane. These seats should have about an inch less than the legs than today.
For 2025, the passengers of Southwest airlines will get more than they pay – make Southwest an increasingly better value proposition to fly throughout the year. In 2026, it will be the southwest which benefits from these seats in terms of higher costs. But while passengers make them freely, it is a modest windfall.
The basic problem with Southwest Airlines is that they have exceeded their model. They were the most systematically profitable airlines for decades – accumulating 47 consecutive years of profits, even until September 11 and the great recession – with a simple formula. They had low costs, a single type of fleet and simple policies adapted to customers.
Now, however, the Southwest is no longer a low-cost carrier. They cannot serve small markets with regional jets, providing food to their largest plans. And they do not offer premium products that customers want to buy.
These changes will not solve this problem. There will still be no first class central seats or even blocked for sale. It is the noise around the edges, to borrow a sentence from an old CEO of Marriott. But that satisfies their activist investor and their new members of the board of directors. And this maintains the best brass used.
