Pre Board
 

Question: I was commuting (in uniform) and my wife was tagging along as a non rev. The gate agent let us pre board! We went down introduced our self, thanked for the ride, chatted a bit with the mid cabin F/A while we were putting our bags away in the emergency exit row. Got all settled in and the same F/A turns to us and says we can't sit there as a pre-board after she watched stow all the bags. Is this true? Pre-boards can't sit in the emergency exit row?
--Barney

Yeah, they announce it like 5 times in the boarding area.

They do it so people in the A group who have paid have the ability to sit there.

That being said, you can always ask the FA .

It's a two pronged deal. One, it keeps the crippled folks out of the emergency exit row, two it preserves the EE row as an option for the guys that either paid for or was awarded A1-15.

The bad part is that it restricts JSers who preboard from sitting there. They are arguably the most capable and well trained people in the plane and the folks that I personally want there.

You honestly lucked out that the ops agent let your wife preboard. They did you a solid. My wife doesn't get to preboard with me usually, and I work there.

Thanks for the response, absolutely makes sense. As far as the wife preboarding, I knew very well the ops agent did me a solid...thanked him very much for that.
​​​​​​I hope I didn't come off as ungrateful when wording my question, I very much realize and appreciate the privilege.
Thanks!!
--Barney

Not at all. Always glad to have guests and they should absolutely change the policy to allow jumpseaters in those seats. Cheers.

When traveling for free on SWA, maximum style points are awarded for sitting towards the back of the cabin.

Does that count for the thousands of pax given 25K RR points? They are traveling for free!

I sit towards the front. I tell my jumpseats to sit up front too.

I don’t want any points. I sit near the front. Sitting towards the back was a thing over 30 years ago .

Yeah no. Pretty much every captain I have encountered even prior to working here had always said to grab a seat up front.

if I am with my family however I will try to for toward the back mostly due to the ease of getting seats together.