Clay Travis Takes On Southwest After Airline Makes Awful Open Seating Policy Change

In an unprecedented and outrageous move, Southwest Airlines has decided to change the one thing that made people want to fly them in the first place - their open-seat boarding policy.

The airline broke the news this week by saying that they will abandon their free-for-all, first-come, first-serve seating arrangement and will instead do what other airlines are doing and assign seats. What this does is effectively take away one of the elements that helped make SWA cheaper and better for the average person. Sure, you had to deal with chaos and madness and rumor has it there are still people stranded at airports from the airline's infamous 2022 Christmas travel nightmare, but hey - it was worth it because it was so cheap. 

But now, many loyal Southwest Airlines fliers are not pleased, including OutKick's fearless leader Clay Travis (who is an admitted hundred millionaire and a man of the people and Southwest flyers).

SOUTHWEST FACING HEAVY CRITICISM FOR BECOMING LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

"Southwest Airlines announcing it will now assign seats has shaken my world to its core. I fly Southwest all the time, to the tune of having 2.2 million points right now, no way this change goes smoothly," Clay tweeted before predicting, "This is going to be a huge mess." 

He's right. 

Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher would be rolling over in his grave if he knew this would be happening to his airline brand that he based on its "egalitarian operating philosophy," along with no bag fees as well as no first class. For decades, Southwest's unofficial motto was "You can sit anywhere you want, just like Church!"

One would presume that the airline will have to overhaul more of its internal booking system to assign seats and call me a pessimist, but frankly, I just don't have faith in the airline. This move reeks of a cash grab as SWA will now be able to charge even more for premium seats and extra legroom - just like every other airline.

When you add the fact that Southwest and Spirit Airlines already have a lower reputation because "you get what you paid for," if they are now going to cost close to as much as other airlines, well NEWSFLASH to the Southwest genius executives out there, people are just going to pay the extra $50 and fly Delta or American because "at least it's not Southwest." 

It's going to take YEARS for Southwest to ever be as trusted or reputable as the other major airlines, and with the airline industry already in disarray, this just seems like a terrible idea. Rebranding is hard enough - but to try and do it with the already crap show that is flying these days? Good luck! 

"I hate this idea of Southwest Airlines getting rid of open seating," Clay continued during his OutKick The Show. "I think this is a really bad decision. I like the ease of boarding… I have the app on my phone, I fly all the time, I travel a lot. Sometimes I have to change the times I have to leave and I like to immediately go in and just see if there's going to be a seat I can immediately change on the flight. I can switch easily, it doesn't cost me very much money and I think one reason that they're able to switch so much is because they don't assign seats."

Good job Southwest. You've angered people like Clay Travis, who explained that he could be taking a private jet if he wanted but instead was giving you money (a lot of it as a frequent flyer), as well as the person just trying to get home during college break.