e6bpilot

Bingo. This was a blatant miscommunication between the ops agent and the FA. If you aren’t a “preboard” ie you did not request to preboard for a disability, you can sit anywhere you want.
Southwest has become so black and white rule oriented in ground ops and inflight that it is negatively impacting their hospitality towards others, and especially our paying customers.
The ops agent was doing him an old school solid by letting him board first. The FAs completely didn’t understand or get that at all. This is a company problem. Open seating is great until it isn’t. We are rapidly approaching the point where the negatives outweigh the positives.
Preboarding is abused across the system and the jetway miracle plus the logjam of wheelchair pax during deplaning is ridiculous. Why? Because preboarders get some of the best seats on the plane. Wheelchair pax should get off the plane last as to not clog up the aisle and jetway when our other high value passengers are trying to get to their meetings and obligations. It’s a logistics issue. Alas, the lawyers write the policies and ground ops and inflight are afraid of their own shadows due to the write up culture in both of those employee groups.