Flying Southwest from Columbus, OH

[Hsminnie]

Do any of you have experience flying Southwest airline from CMH? I am told they generally preboard small children but a CS rep I talked to yesterday said, rather snidely, "Well, if we preboard children on a flight to Florida that would be just about the whole plane, wouldn't it?"

I was hoping to board early with our 2yod and have dh bring the 10yod and 7yod on in the general boarding. It's no big deal, I am just curious what people have experienced at the gate.

 

[TerriBelle]

We have not flown from that airport but every airport that I have flown in or out of on Southwest has always had pre-boarding for families with young children.

 

[ttfn3]

We fly out of CMH and have used both Delta and Southwest for flights to Florida. Southwest will offer preboarding to families with young children (I believe under the age of 5?) and other passengers that may need extra help - i.e. elderly, those in wheelchairs, etc.

We actually flew on Southwest on one flight that about 1/2 the flight was preboarded between all the families with young kids and elderly people. Pretty funny that the plane had these two extreme groups of flyers.

My recommendation is to have someone in your party stand in line at the preboarding line as soon as you see someone head to that line. You don't need everyone to stand in the line until they get about ready to preboard.

also - fyi - Southwest used to have a small lego table at the gate at CMH for kids to play with. A nice touch.

Remember - Don't stress out about this. Southwest is a great airline and people will be willing to trade seats with you so that your whole family gets to sit together.

 

[4greatboys]

We just returned from our trip Sunday and flew SWA. My 2 youngest are 2 yrs and 5 months and we did get to preboard both in Houston and in Orlando. In both cases there were a few other families preboarding but not the whole plane like your rude cs rep seemed to think.

 

[ahutton]

Southwest has let us preboard going into Orlando with DD. We hwve been told they'll allow parents and kids only, My parents will have to wait for regular boarding. I suggest making sure you are at the counter an hour before so if your gate agent doesn't preboard you are early in the groups so you don't have seat challenges.

By the way we recently flew American and were told they won't do preboarding for families anymore. "They did a study that showed it takes longer to board a plane if they do preboarding."

 

[DonnaDavid]

We always pre-board on SWA. Also, watch out for the food thing. We fly non-stop from Portland, OR to Orlando; we always have to bring a cooler with food. Milk is especially problematic as SWA has none and I fly with an 18 mo old.

 

[Hsminnie]

Thanks so much for all of your posts!!!

I am looking forward to this trip more and more!!!