We flew SouthWest Air when we came down here to Florida, and the totem poles were still there.
The first time I flew SouthWest after a long absence I was interested to see these silver poles with odd numbers on them: etc. I knew they were meant to designate our personal waiting space. But we’d gotten up at 5:30 that morning and I expected to hear the poles hum or spin and shoot off vivid colors.
They are beautiful steel. Does anyone polish them?
Our personal waiting spaces were 30 and 31. I kept walking up to the poles and trying to find our numbers. Finally I asked a SW employee and she explained it. We pushed trough the people and found ourselves at the front of the second line in A group. I like being at the head of the line.

This year, we went Business class and we were A1 and A2. Yes!