Is it possible this has anything to do with cheaper tickets and more amateur flyers? There are always some families new to flying that seem to gum up the works.

If that were the case I don’t think Southwest would ever have been record holders in turnaround time. Their tickets have historically been cheaper than many competitors.

The one advantage SW has is the open seating. People will naturally disperse along the length of the plane so as to avoid the middle seat. This could prevent many traffic jams that otherwise slow boarding with the rest of the passengers stuck behind a slow loader.

Not sure if it would actually make an impact -you will still get blockages. Would need a queuing theorist to comment.

We did SW once and never again. Some things we learned the hard way having never flown SW before: You have to pay extra if you don't want to be dead last on the plane, and evidently, everyone pays extra, because we were dead last. Not sitting together for sure (you have to pay extra for that too). So we finally get on the plane, and all the carry on space is already used up. We ask the flight attendant "so what now" and she just shrugs like it's my problem. I tell her OK we'll just leave the bags in the aisle then, or will you gate check them for us? Finally, she huffs and proceeds to open every overhead bin one by one until we find two of them with small backpacks that we have to yank down and convince the owners to stick under the seat in front of them. All the while the rest of the passengers are looking at us like we're preventing their ambulance from getting to the hospital.

No thanks. I'll take a slower boarding with a traditional airline that doesn't make their passengers feel like a burden.

While true, in summer travel season more than half the plane will board early when SW allows families with small children to board between groups A and B. There's no real definition of small child and SW will let a party of 8 board early because one of them is 4 years old. Mom, Dad, teenage kids, grandma...etc.

You really do need to pay for A boarding if you must sit together. Or game the system and claim you need to preboard.

SWA is phasing in assigned seating and will be fully cutover by this coming February.

... and because of activist investors, they're throwing that away.

It's insane how Southwest is willing to throw away a unique competitive edge that nobody else has, and their loyal customer base with it. It's also insane that the activist investors pressured them to do something that stupid. In one stroke Southwest went from being an airline worth going out of your way to fly, to just another airline which has to compete on price alone. Absolutely boneheaded move.

I intentionally chose Southwest for my last flight because the old policies -- included bags and free-form seating-- made me feel better about the experience. I didn't need the free checked bags, but I appreciated not being pressured into guessing exactly how many pairs of pants I'm going to need for a trip I booked 3 months in advance.

I know I'm not the industry's ideal customer-- taking solo tourist-class flights booked long in advance, once or twice a year, and not churning frequent flyer points, but that doesn't mean I want to be treated with contempt.

To be honest, that feels like an entire direction the travel sector needs to focus on. I'm paying hundreds of dollars to sit in your lowest-bid Metal Death Tube or stay in your Totally Not A Bedbug Sanctuary, stop treating me like a transient who walked into a Rodeo Drive boutique because I don't have Triple Ytterbium Status.

The number of SWA customers who needed wheelchairs to board (earlier than able-bodied pax) and were healed enough mid-flight to be able to walk off at the destination was astounding. It’ll be sad to lose all those miraculous recoveries.