southwest fee for early boarding passes?

Update on topic: I did the 24 hr check in and was happy to see that we got A46 and A47. Not having flown when I didn't have an assigned seat, I was wondering how this would work. We lined up in the A 31- 60 line and when we got on the plane, all the window seats and aisle seats were taken, leaving row after row of middle seats. Since you generally want to sit with your traveling companion, this wasn't so good. we did manage to find a middle seat and aisle seat near the back of the plane. On the return flight, I was at the computer at exactly 24 hrs before the flight and this time we got B 15, 16 tickets. The return went a little smoother and my husband did get a window seat and I got the middle. Once we figured it out, it wasn't so bad and I would fly sw again and I don't think I would spring for the extra 50.00 for the early bird seating. I did hear a lot of people complaining about the seating arrangement. Plane was full, coming and going!

Each row has two aisle and two window so if only middle seats were left, you were on a very small plane. 12 rows have 48 aisle and window seats. You should have had no problem getting seats together with A46 and A47.

I believe Southwest only flies Boeing 737's, but there are minor variations in seating due to the model. As I recall they seat somewhere around 110 people.

I too was thrown by LizzyJoe's story but then I remembered that there could be many people already on the plane who had a "stop", but not a plane change. That would explain the lack of side by side seating.

Holy crap! That had to be brutal, should look into renting a scooter on those kinda days, they're not thta expensive. That is pretty funny about the change thing tho I'm not sure how I'd react to that one.

J

True that they only fly 737's. We were kinda concerned about what kind of plane we would be on out key west so my wife called and asked, the lady quickly responded "SW only flies 737's". It was kind of a throwback airport, you had to walk out on the tarmac and climb up the rolling set of stairs to get on the plane. That 737 looked so out of place next to all the puddle jumpers that were out there.

Also good point about people staying on the plane. We had to gte off in Tampa and many folks stayed on the plane which was headed to KC or something.

It is true that people were going to other stops, so that makes sense. The plane had only one aisle with 3 seats on each side. we were flying from Flint, MI to Las Vegas and it is a smaller airport than Detroit Metro.

Another cause for high seating numbers is if you are taking a flight non stop that others are transferring/connecting to. The transfer people are getting their boarding numbers based on 24 hours before their earlier connecting flight to your flight, and would typically be getting boarding numbers 1-3 hours earlier than you, even though you are both on the same flight.

Got our highest numbers ever on the return flight from Vegas...A59 & 60 (using the bird). Full flight, as usual and ended up in the 5th row with window and center (bin space available right over it). You got to be lucky sometimes. The furthest we have ever been back in seats is about the 10th row (last 100 flights or so) and we always carry our luggage. We would have to be in the C group before we spent $40 for an upgrade (and than, only if we had a winning trip).