Southwest plans to put its first aircraft with extra-legroom seats into service on May 1.
Planes reconfigured with extra-legroom seats will be added steadily through the end of the year as Southwest prepares to begin selling assigned and extra-legroom seats.
Southwest's seat map for retrofitted Boeing 737-800 and 737 Max aircraft shows that five rows at the front of planes will have extra legroom. Behind those, seven-and-a-half rows will be merchandised as preferred seats, e.g. standard seats that are closer to the front of the plane. Behind those, three more rows, including the exit rows, will also have extra legroom.
A display shows the premium and extra-legroom seating configuration for Southwest's Boeing 737-800 and Max 8 jets. Photo Credit: Southwest Airlines
The remaining 14 rows will be merchandised as standard seats.
But even though Southwest is refitting its planes now, it won't start offering them for sale until the end of September, for flights beginning in Q1 2026. Until then, flyers with early boarding positions will get first chance at snagging the roomier seats.
Changes for Southwest
The addition of assigned seating and of an extra-legroom product are two major pieces of the airline's ongoing commercial transformation, which will end with a business model similar to legacy competitors United, Delta and American.
Other changes include the end of the Southwest's two-bags-fly-free policy and the addition of basic economy fares.
Southwest has said that its extra-legroom seats will have 34 inches of space between rows. To make room, the carrier will reduce the space between rows on its larger aircraft, the 737-800 and Max 8, by one inch for standard seats. That will leave those seats with a spacing of 31 inches, which is what Southwest's smaller 737-7 and Max 7 planes have. To make room for extra-legroom seats on those smaller planes, the airline will make a small reduction in the seat count.
When, and where, will the planes be retrofitted
The carrier will update its 737-8 and Max 8 aircraft first and then move onto the 737-7 and Max 7 planes after the summer. In the late summer, Southwest expects to begin affixing visual indicators to differentiate extra-legroom seats.
Southwest plans to undertake the retrofits overnight at its maintenance bases in Denver, Phoenix, Houston and Atlanta and says they will not impact flight schedules.
Southwest had originally planned to begin installation of the extra-legroom seats earlier this year. However, it seems to have a speedier timeframe for doing the actual install: The airline expects to retrofit as many as 150 planes per month, up from an expected 50 to 100 planes per month.