Southwest Airlines: Control the Carry Ons Not the Seating

Southwest Airlines is considering assigned seating on it's flights. With assigned seating, the airline can tell exactly where everyone is sitting. In this day and age it is important for airlines to maintain as much security as possible, but what does it mean for the everyday traveler? How does this impact those of us that fly two or three times a week on Southwest airlines? Assigned seating would definately give the people who book their flights early a chance to choose where they want to sit without having to arrive early to stand in line to get a "good" seat. However, most of the flights I have been on are full of business travelers who don't really book their flights that far in advance. They don't know where they will be traveling until a few weeks or even days before they travel. So booking early is not an option.

And which seats on a Southwest plane are really the GOOD seats? Flying on Southwest is already like riding on a flying bus. As it is, the seats are so close together you end up with way too much personal contact with the passengers beside you. I guess some people might HAVE to have a window seat or an aisle seat. I definately would prefer not to sit in the middle crammed between two total strangers both hogging the arm rests. It's hard to fly for an hour with your arms pressed to your sides. Otherwise, I just don't think that there's THAT much difference in where you sit. It's not like they have first class seating.

What Southwest NEEDS to do is limit the size of the carry on luggage being brought on the planes these days. No one wants to have to check their luggage any more and the size of the carry ons is getting outrageous. During boarding, everyone has to wait in the aisles while some tiny woman with a steamer trunk trys to hoist it up into the over head bin. Then when the plane lands, the tiny lady trys to get her luggage down, and ends up giving the person sitting below it a concussion when she drops it on their head! If Southwest really wants to improve their service, they need to control the size of the carry ons not the seating arraingements.