Southwest CEO Shares Update on 2025 Plans — Including Extra Legroom and Assigned Seating Rollout

05.12.2024 - 20:05 / travelandleisure.com / Bob Jordan / Elliott Management

Travelers can look forward to buying tickets for Southwest Airlines’ new premium seats beginning sometime late next year, CEO Bob Jordan said Thursday.

«Selling the new products [is] back half of 2025, and operating the new products [in] the first half of 2026, all of that is on track,” he said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference.

The new extra-legroom seats are part of a bigger transformation of Southwest’s product that will see it discard its open-seating, egalitarian model that it credits for much of its success over the past 50 years. Other changes include assigned seating, red-eye flights, and international partnerships, the first of which will be with Icelandair.

The changes follow pressure from an activist investor, Elliott Management, for Southwest to improve its financial performance. The new products and flights are expected to generate billions of dollars in new revenue for the airline in the coming years.

Southwest is investing “hundreds of millions” of dollars in the new extra-legroom premium seats and other changes, Jordan said. The work includes updating more than 60 of Southwest’s technology systems to sell the new products, and securing Federal Aviation Administration approval of the new seats.

The changes are not without risk. The airline has built its brand around its unique product and business, and risks alienating some customers as its offerings become something closer to the other major U.S. airlines.

“It’s not going to change who we are, or the values that we stand for,” Jordan said. “It changes the product that we offer our customers that they want significantly.”

Southwest is far from alone in updating its product. Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways, and Spirit Airlines are all making similar moves in response to increased consumer demand for more premium travel products. Next year, budget carrier Frontier plans to debut new first-class seats and JetBlue its first airport lounges. Spirit plans further product changes as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.

In terms of Southwest, travelers can look forward to seeing the new seats — and enjoying the extra legroom for free — onboard flights sometime early in 2025. The airline plans to begin flying the updated product before it begins selling it in order to have it on a critical mass of planes.