Security issues doom Southwest boarding cards

To address new security mandates, Southwest Airlines is tweaking its maverick boarding system.

After more than 30 years of use, Southwest is eliminating its brightly colored plastic boarding cards. Each card contains a number that indicates to passengers in what order they can enter the plane.

Instead, passengers are receiving cardboard documents displaying the passenger's name, date, flight origin and destination, flight number and confirmation numbers.

The goal is to make sure that the carrier knows who is boarding its flights. "We will know that the person who checked in at the gate and who has a paper boarding card is the same person boarding the plane," said Southwest spokeswoman Linda Rutherford.

The printed boarding passes, which resemble those used by many other airlines, will also enable Southwest to know if a person checked a bag but failed to board, said Rutherford. Should that happen, the luggage would be removed, she said.

Southwest, however, has no plans to take the more radical step of assigning seats. Its open-seating process -- or cattle call, as some travelers call it -- will remain at the heart of its system.

For several weeks, both printed and plastic cards have been used as the new system is phased in. That means that Southwest passengers arriving at the boarding gate these days receive both the plastic and cardboard boarding passes.

By June, the airline will eliminate the plastic cards, and the printed documents will also include the boarding number.

The plastic boarding passes were part of Southwest's innovative and relentless effort to keep costs and ticket fares low. Rutherford declined to say what this nod to the new security environment will cost the airline, but some analysts said it could be a bundle.

In a report, Brian Harris, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney, estimated that Southwest will spend more than $242-million a year on new security costs and insurance premiums.

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