Edit: Also, consider that Southwest is very profitable despite the fact that they don't have first class or business class sections on their aircraft. Yes, passengers pay different fares. But as far as I know, they all sit in the same crappy seats.
After landing we discovered that checking in at the right time might get us further ahead in the line but we tried that, checking in within minutes of checkin opening and were still pretty far back in the lines.
We ended up buying an "upgrade" to get us ahead in the line and next to each other. For us to do that for both flights, we'd have been paying ~50% extra for a feature that comes by default with all other airlines.
Also, while interacting with Southwest's famously "better", more "caring" staff, we were met with total disinterest and absolutely no sympathy.
This isn't a bad strategy by them as it tends to give better seats to people on long itineraries who have been waiting around, and since those people fly long distances they are also high-value customers.
If Southwest covers your route, their fares are almost always going to be competitive with the lowest price. Where Southwest is not good is when you have longer flights (cross country) which will almost always entail stops and or changing planes. But it is great for short stuff like flying between OAK/LAX/SFO/PHX/LAS.
Ever since I listened to that I cannot stop thinking about it when boarding is slow and get upset about the airline making things actively inefficient. A friend made the good point though that a likely reason for the process being chosen despite actively wasting time is that it feels intuitively efficient to most passengers and keeps them happy.
My experience is that American passengers are just terrible. Planes here in Japan board so quickly in comparison, with a standard back-to-front boarding.
At the train station there are markings indicating were the doors of the train are gonna be and people line up at the markings. It makes it really easy to pick a good spot to wait for the train and makes boarding so much less stressful. At least for me. In SF train stops I'd always be strategizing where to position myself and keep repositioning as more waiting passengers are bunching up in certain areas. I'm crazy that way. So Japan was very relaxing for me.
AirTran (now part of Southwest) used to be really nice.
I've had the complete opposite experience. I used to frequently fly southwest between Denver and PDX, and the flight crew were chill AF. You can almost guarantee a free drink or two on a southwest flight if you ask nicely -- I can't say the same about any other domestic American airline.
On my last flight, I was traveling with a four year old, but my first flight arrived late, so we were the last ones on the connection. There were only middle seats left (and the flight attendant was rude about it). A woman and her husband were sitting in A & C seats, and one of them moved for us. But they could have sat together if everyone had just sat more efficiently.
Selling the right to sit next to your travel companions seems much sleazier to me than selling other airplane perks, like more luggage or snacks or specific seats.
Also, early bird check in is $15. Only one of you would need it (no one will fight you for a center)... So $30 for a round trip if you don't want to have to check in on time.
"Minutes" isn't good enough. I travel Southwest with my wife all the time and we have never failed to get seats next to each other. You need to go the the check-in form 24 hours and 2-3 minutes before your flight, have your confirmation number and other info filled out and click "Check-in" the exact second the clock turns over to 24 hours before your flight. That will probably get you a low-numbered B or a high-numbered A boarding group.
i prefer southwest because there's little incentive to fight for position. They give you a complete ordering, so you can wait until the last minute to line up.
(also as others mentioned, it's faster which is great too)
If you care so much about an aisle seat, get early check in, it's $15.
Would be better just to file people in, next seat, next seat, with exceptions for groups to go to the next row. "First available seat or seat group that will seat your group".
They had to abandon this when the TSA started requiring a boarding pass to get through security, which made gate-side check in impossible.
Their boarding procedure is selected because it's scientifically proven to be the fastest (out of the acceptable options). There are more exotic procedures that are even faster but people wont put up with them. Ideally you want back-to-front, outside-in, staggered sides, staggered rows to make it as parallel as possible.
It may be a stretch, but I imagine if United employees felt they had the freedom to circumvent policy to "do the right thing", the situation could've been avoided.
That is damn good.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1248