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Why don't some airlines (for example Southwest in US) assign seats to passengers? How does it help them? Doesn't it delay the boarding (passengers going back and forth inside the plane to grab their favorite seats)?

Are there any studies to show that this is a better method? Or is there any technical reason why some airlines does this while others do not?

Ank
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    I am not sure this is answerable with facts rather than just guesses. – Jan Hudec Nov 16 '15 at 14:12
  • Passengers generally enter the plane from the front. They won't be going back and forth; they'll go as far as they want and grab some seat. And people with reservation in the back trying to pass others trying to take a seat in the front may make just as much delay. – Jan Hudec Nov 16 '15 at 14:16
  • If I was to guess, I'd say because it makes the reservation system simpler. Still, many low-cost airlines started out that way and started reserving places later, but usually the reason given is that it was not well received by passengers. – Jan Hudec Nov 16 '15 at 14:17
  • There are some passengers that prefer not having reserved seats. If we use Southwest as an example, it allows travellers to puchase tickets fairly close to the day of their flight, and then merely check-in online 24 hours before departure to get the best boarding group and then show up early and and line up early to get the best pick of seats. Contrast that with booking the flight early to get the best reserved seat and then being able to show up later and enter the plane last to get the reserved seat. – Todd Wilcox Nov 16 '15 at 15:02
  • I vote to close because this question can't be answered with facts or any other information-source. Provided answer's may be primarily opinion-based or assumptions. – jklingler Nov 16 '15 at 15:11
  • I forget where I saw it, but there was a (probably unscientific) study where a plane was loaded a few different times a few different ways and the results were compared. They loaded front-to-back, back-to-front, and "free-for-all". I can't recall the results, though... – Steve Nov 16 '15 at 15:22
  • Apparently it was Mythbusters. Their conclusion was the fastest way to board a plane is the "free-for-all" method, but passengers also liked it the least. http://flightclub.jalopnik.com/mythbusters-proves-most-airlines-board-planes-all-wrong-1636981904 – Steve Nov 16 '15 at 15:23
  • @Steve There have been more scientific studies done that showed back-to-front loading of window seats, then middle, then aisle to be the fastest of alternating rows, IIRC. This, of course, makes perfect sense, as everyone is putting their bags up at the same time, rather than the guy in row 3 blocking the entire plane for 5 minutes as he attempts to shove his bag in the overhead. As far as boarding time is concerned, front-to-back (assuming boarding from a forward door) is the least efficient, due to aisle blockage. However, airlines do it anyway because it makes their elites feel special. – reirab Nov 16 '15 at 19:10
  • @Steve While the optimality of the above-mentioned method seems kind of obvious to me, it apparently has been studied by some guy named Steffen and is referred to as the 'Steffen method.' – reirab Nov 16 '15 at 19:15
  • I don't believe this is opinion based question. There has to be some studies backing the decision of airlines going this route. All I'm asking the community is let me know if they have come across those studies. I couldn't find them when I searched online. – Ank Nov 16 '15 at 20:20
  • Short answer: make more money ( charge for seats selection, online reserve system, etc......) – Him Nov 16 '15 at 20:33
  • southwest doesn't charge for seat selection.. Also when you charge for seat selection, you are assigning the customer seats. I'm talking of airlines not assigning seats.. – Ank Nov 16 '15 at 23:18

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It is mainly used by low-cost single-class cabin airline companies to make the reservation process simpler.

SMS von der Tann
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  • How does it make the reservation process faster. Would you as a passenger care if you are getting an assigned seat but the process take few seconds more? If it makes reservation process faster, why is it only used by low cost airlines. – Ank Nov 16 '15 at 20:18
  • I think "simpler" here mainly means "simpler for the airline" - they don't need to [pay software developers to] keep track of which seats are filled, just a count of how many seats are filled. Similarly, they don't care about the layout of a different planes; for the purposes of reservations every plane can be boiled down to a single "capacity" number. – Tin Wizard Apr 13 '17 at 20:45