How does check in with southwest airlines work exactly?

Question

The questions are toward the end if you just want to answer, but take time and read please :D

Since southwest has this new check in thing, I was wondering how it works. I know i have to check in 24 hours in advance to the departure of the flight and I need to check in four people. Im going to wake up at 6:30 tommorow to do this. Their is a check in place right on the southwest website. Look for yourself. www.southwest.com, and their is 4 arrows pointing to different tools and stuff. When you click check in online it asks confirmation number, first and last name. when i click go will i need to fill out more info or im done. and do i have to check in each of m family members one by one?and do i have to print boarding passes? Do i check in the "main person" and it will give me options to check in everybody? thanks 10 points to whoever gives best answer

Answer 1

My family and I went through the same thing when we went to Florida in February on Southwest.

It is pretty easy, just like you said, go to www.southwest.com and look for the check in area. You type in your first and last name and then the confirmation number. If you booked all four people/tickets at the same time, all of you should appear on the next page. It will ask you which people you would like to check in and you select it, and I'm almost 90% sure you select how many bags you have to check in once you get to the airport (not carryon).

Then, it will direct you to a page where it will have you click on a link (or a separate link per passenger, can't remember) and you will have to print out each boarding pass. If you have a connecting flight, it will print out the boarding pass for both flights you have. On each of your passenger's boarding passes, there will be a boarding number group, which can be numbers next to an A, B, or C. The earlier you check in, the better group you are in. The A group boards first (if you are over A31, B31, or C31, you are always second in the letter group to board), then the B group, and lastly, the C group.

You will need to stand up when they call for example "A1-A31" and you stand by these metal poles that are labeled near the gate and wait to be directed to board the plane. This is how southwest boards their planes.

I hope this helps you and if you have any other questions, you can ask as well.

Answer 2

When you put your confirmation number in, it should give you an option to check boxes for the passengers.  Choose all of you and it should run the security documents/"boarding passes" for all four of you.  I put boarding passes in quotes because they don't have a seat, just a zone and number like B36.  Where they used to just have three lines, A, B, and C, they now divide those into about 60 passengers per zone.  They will board A1-30 then A31-60, B1-30, then B31-60, etc.