One of the (many) upcoming changes for Southwest Airlines is to update the seating on its planes. The airline currently offers the same seating across the board. But when updated, Southwest planes will be retrofitted to include higher-end (read: more expensive) seats with more legroom. Those will be in the front 1/3 of the cabin, and while thinner, smaller economy seats will occupy the rear two-thirds.
Installation Timeline Now Confirmed
During the airline’s Q4 conference call, the airline announced a delay in installing its seats with extra legroom. At the time, they hadn’t pinpointed when the retrofitting would begin other than “sometime in the second quarter” of 2025. They also didn’t mention when they expected the work to be completed.
That’s apparently now been decided.
Aviation Week reports that the airline has confirmed they’ll begin retrofitting the interiors of their 800+ Boeing 737 aircraft as of May 1st.
It appears they expect to be finished by the very end of the year, as Landon Nitschke, senior vice president of technical operations at the carrier, said, “We have to touch a little more than 800 aircraft between May 1 and December 31, so that the company is ready to go with the extended legroom product.”
Logistics Behind the Upgrade
To get the massive work done in such a short amount of time, Nitschke says teams at Southwest maintenance facilities in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Orlando and Phoenix will work on 7 to 10 Boeing 737 aircraft each night.
Nitschke says Southwest has been planning for this – they’ve done several prototypes for the interior retrofitting process, and he believes the transformation of each plane can be completed overnight.
That being said, it appears they’ll have a little wiggle room since although assigned seat booking will begin later this year, the airline doesn’t plan to begin assigned seating (bringing with it the option to purchase an extra-legroom seat) until sometime during the first half of 2026.
Feature Photo: Southwest Airlines
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3 comments
WN is like a toilet being flushed in slow motion. By Wall Street scumbags.
If all WN was doing was adding assigned seating, creating extra legroom seats, and adjusting boarding groups (all interconnected), that would’ve been understandable. But revamping everything all at once is just plain stupid. They’re driving away their loyal base and aren’t doing anything to entice new customers. With a crappy FF program, there’s even less reason to fly them now…
A once great airline turned to shit by greedy shareholders. I hope the airline loses millions of dollare.