Although there’s no first-class seating on Southwest Airlines, members in the top tiers of the carrier’s frequent flier program do get one important perk when it comes time to get on the plane: Priority boarding, which means that they’re usually among the first in line. But a recent glitch has taken that benefit away for many passengers lately, ticking a lot of them off in the process.
For those unfamiliar, Southwest doesn’t assign seats to its passengers, but instead assigns boarding groups — A, B, or C — and numbers, depending on when travelers check in. But frequent fliers who’ve earned elite status in either the A-List Preferred or A-List tier are automatically checked in for their flights ahead of other travelers, and are usually assigned boarding numbers early in the A group.
The system is down
Over the past few days, however, many of these frequent fliers complained that they were getting assigned higher numbers on their boarding passes — including assignments in the C group.
This is not going over well.

@SouthwestAir not happy with southwest – my a list status gets me a B53 boarding pass and when I call the answer: it’s a known issue.
— JohnG (@whcanet) August 11, 2017

Southwest Airlines. A list preferred gets B boarding pass?