I recently flew on Southwest airlines for the first time, and while the experience on a whole was pleasant, there are a few ‘gotchas’ to be aware of.
First of all, Southwest does not allow you to choose your seat when you book your flight. You are assigned a group and a number when you check-in that dictate when you can get on the plane. Once on the plane, any seat is fair game. So to avoid getting the middle seat and to ensure that you can stow your carry-on, it is imperative that you check-in as early as possible (typically 24 hours before departure time). Fortunately, Southwest has a webpage designed for mobile devices, so you can check in even if you’re away from a computer. However, if you have the misfortune of being on the terror watch list, you might be screwed.
Next, when boarding, the seats in Row 1 look attractive because of all the legroom. Unfortunately, these seats do not have tray tables for some reason. If you get a drink, you’ll have to hold it until you’re done with it. Every other plane I have ever been on has tables that fold out of the armrest for the first row seats. I can’t see this being a cost-saving issue, so I don’t know why Southwest omitted these tables.
Finally, Southwest’s planes do not have closets at the front of the plane to store garment bags in, so you have to stow them in carry-on bins. Again, I’ve never seen this before on other airlines. I can see how removing the closet frees up some extra room, but it’s a pain having to try and layer a garment bag on top of a bunch of irregularly shaped carry-ons that barely fit in the bin to begin with.