Southwest Airlines (WN, Dallas Love Field) has completed the cabin reconfiguration of its entire fleet of B737-700s, composed of 311 aircraft. The carrier’s team removed a row of seats to create space for extra legroom, Tom Doxey, chief financial officer, said in a statement on social media.

“Southwest is launching assigned and extra-legroom seating on January 27. As part of the preparations, we needed to physically modify the seating configuration of our aircraft. For our ~300 Boeing 737‑700s, that meant removing a row of seats to create space for the extra legroom,” he explained.

The airline’s technical operations team began the work after the holiday season and completed the cabin reconfiguration on all active aircraft a week ahead of schedule, Doxey added.

The other aircraft in Southwest’s fleet (201 B737-800s and 300 B737-8s), which have larger cabins than the -700, do not require the removal of a row of seat to accommodate extra legroom.

Southwest’s B737-700s had a configuration for 143 passengers in a single-class configuration. The reconfiguration is part of Southwest's business restructuring, moving away from decades-old practices and introducing new features such as assigned seating, red-eye flights, and more. The changes were forced on the carrier by activist investor Elliott Management in 2024 and 2025.