"You Are Now Free To Turn In Your Cowbells?"

In this crazy world, it's somewhat reassuring to have some things that are certain. The traffic light will always turn yellow as you're approaching the intersection. That tailwind you were counting on will evaporate somewhere over Nebraska. And there will never, ever be assigned seating on a Southwest Airlines flight.

Well, perhaps we were all a bit quick on that last one. On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that the airline has been looking into the idea; in fact, the airline has spent $5 million on an enhanced reservation system, as part of an internal program to see if it could implement assigned seating without significant impact on the airline's operations. At the forefront of those considerations is how assigned seating would impact the carrier's celebrated quick turnaround times.

Officials at the nation's largest low-cost airline stated adamantly that Southwest has not decided to adopt assigned seats -- but acknowledged it is exploring all options, after complaints about the current system from passengers.

"In order to look at the possibility as to will this work for Southwest Airlines, we needed to bump up the reservation system a little bit," Southwest spokeswoman Beth Hardin said. "We're very much in the investigative mode as of now."

Throughout its 35-year history, Southwest has never had assigned seats -- relying instead on a first-come, first-served system that is referred to by Southwest fans and detractors alike as the "cattle-call." If passengers want a preferred window or aisle seat, they'd best show up early (or, recently, check in online).

That system -- though lacking a certain elegance and decorum -- has been touted by Southwest executives as saving money on printing boarding passes. The lack of assigned seating also allows Southwest to turn its planes in record time, in part because it (in theory) decreases dawdling in the aisle, and it encourages passengers to show up early -- and ontime -- for their flight.

Some passengers, however, have never liked the open-seating policy... especially business travelers, some of whom say they'll go out of their way to avoid flying Southwest for that reason alone, lower fares be darned.

"I'm willing to pay for a reserved seat," construction consultant Robert Salmon told the Post. "I don't consider [Southwest] because they don't reserve seats."

Southwest has also seen other LCCs, such as JetBlue and AirTran, encroach on its market share... and those carriers do offer assigned seats.

"Southwest has to [implement assigned seating] to stay competitive," said airline consultant Mike Boyd, of the Denver-based Boyd Group. "They're going to be pushed out of markets if they don't."

FMI: www.southwest.com