Southwest Airlines Is Dropping Its Most Unique Feature

It’s the end of an era at Southwest Airlines. After more than 50 years of blazing its own trail through the skies, the Dallas-based airline is dropping its unique open-boarding system. 

Love it or hate it, but Southwest Airlines announced Thursday that it will start assigning passengers to seats like its competitors.

The change comes after research showed that 80% of Southwest customers and 86% of potential customers prefer assigned seats. 

The airline currently assigns passengers one of three boarding groups—A, B, and C—depending on how early they manage to check in for their flight. Customers can avoid the mad dash to check in and secure earlier boarding by paying for a higher-priced ticket. 

“I know there are going to be customers who say, ‘I want to stay with open seating.’ It’s a minority,” Southwest CEO Robert Jordan told CNBC, “but we had the same thing when we switched from plastic boarding passes. We had the same thing when we took peanuts out of the cabin. I’m convinced we can win them over.”

In addition to assigning seats, Southwest plans to offer a “premium, extended legroom portion of the cabin” that research shows many customers “strongly prefer.” The airline will transition roughly one-third its seats to offer extended legroom, “in line with that offered by industry peers on narrowbody aircraft.”

Southwest has not announced when these changes will go into effect.