A Personal Wheelchair User's Experience Flying Southwest Airlines with Assigned Seats

SMF-AUS-MCI

May 9, 2026

MCI-PHX-SMF

May 15, 2026

 

Kellisa flew four segments last week on Southwest Airlines. This was her first trip since Southwest changed their seating policy to assigned seats. Kellisa has flown Southwest almost exclusively over the past 20 years. The only exceptions were trips to Hawaii and Alaska before Southwest started flying to the 49th and 50th states and one trip to Billings.

"A Day of Flights"

9 years ago...1/3 of Kellisa's life has gone by since we gave her the present of "A Day of Flights." May 16, 2017 was one of the greatest days of Kellisa’s life and I haven't been able to come up with a better birthday celebration, despite many hours of racking my brain.

After many months of planning and finally pulling off the day better than I dreamed, I was struggling to post about it. Thankfully, Lisa came to the rescue and for the first time in this blog's history, Lisa has written a post and it captures the day and our gift of flights to Kellisa for her birthday better than I could have ever done. *This is also by far the most popular post on our little blog.

Kellisa Returns to Adventure Traveling

 Kellisa lost so much due to everything closing for the pandemic: her last 18 months of school, dances, proms, graduation, and the most costly, hundreds of rides on her school bus. While it was difficult to find a consensus during the pandemic, everyone seemed to agree that the elderly and those with medical conditions would be at high risk to develop severe COVID. We decided early on to play it extra safe with Kellisa and she remained in her room long after the rest of the family slowly returned to their normal activities.

Kellisa did attend a few events and on occasion went to the movies or out to eat, but travel always seemed too risky. Kellisa had rarely gone more than a few months without a flight since her very first back in May 2000. We even lost track of her flights sometime after she reached 400 years ago. 

We took a quick weekend trip to see family in Peoria, IL in January 2023, just short of three years since Kellisa's last flight before lockdowns (PDX-SMF February 2020). Everything went well and Kellisa had a great time. She felt some anxiety after so much time trapped at home, but it was clear that she still loved to travel.

I didn't want to let too much time pass before another trip, so I planned a little trip down to Palm Springs, CA in early April 2023. I was a little nervous about how Kellisa would respond, but it was like the three pandemic years never happened. Kellisa couldn't stop smiling, giggling, and asking for "more" adventures.

Our travel day was filled with many highlights (see below) that were very enjoyable to Kellisa. 

I can say that Adventurous Kellisa is back!

Getting safe for a parking shuttle bus ride.

Riding a glass wall elevator in the terminal.

Airport tram ride.

Our gate.

Anxiously waiting to board.

It's really happening!

Excited to be in the sky.

Yosemite National Park far below.

Good father-daughter times.

Kellisa was happy with our rental vehicle.

Our accessible room for a few days.

Adventure awaits!

HOME

Black Mesa

Memories Revisited:

Kellisa's 8th State Highpoint

Black Mesa, Oklahoma

4,973ft.

Round Trip Hiking Distance: 8.4 Miles

Elevation Gain: 654ft.

April 2008

Our first father/daughter Spring Break trip happened in 2008. The main objective was to reach the Highpoint of Oklahoma. The plan was to fly to Amarillo, TX and have our cousin Matt pick us up, as he was able to join us for this trip. However, we almost did not make it to Amarillo. We had a stopover in Dallas that included a severe seizure that lasted longer than 5 minutes. Paramedics had to be called and airport police also hustled to the scene. Just as everyone was arriving, Kellisa popped out of her seizure.

Since the paramedics were on scene, they had to check Kellisa out. At the same time, a police officer starts questioning me about Kellisa. "Where is her mother? Is she Hispanic? Do you have the mother's approval to be traveling out of state?" I did not let the questions bother me as I figured he was just doing his job in a border state. Kellisa checked out OK and they offered to transport her to the hospital for further evaluations. Did I ever miss Lisa at this point. We are use to making joint decisions in these situations.

If we go on...am I just being selfish? Would I ever forgive myself if something happened in the air?

If we stay...we are entirely stuck in Dallas and for how long? Matt will be waiting in Amarillo for a long time.

Even though Kellisa struggles with communication, we try and give her a say in these situations. Kellisa was looking good as she did not have the usual paralysis that follows even a mild seizure. I'm sweating bullets as I ask her if she is OK and ready for one more airplane ride. She answers "Yes" and that was good enough for me.

We were far from our gate and it was past the departure time. We hurry to the gate and to our good fortune, the gate agent has held the plane because he had seen us at the gate earlier and knew we where around somewhere. He was also listening to the rescue on his radio and assumed it was us. I was very appreciative that he held the entire plane about 15 minutes just for us.

How about one more problem? We fly Southwest and they are well known for not assigning seats. With Kellisa, we are always the first to board. However, being the last on a full flight would mean that we both would get stuck with middle seats and who knows how close together? I think the gate agent saw some fear in my face and correctly assumed why it was there. He told us not to worry because he had the flight attendants hold two seats in the front row. Gotta love Southwest! The flight was uneventful and we met Matt at the airport just as planned.

The following day we made the long drive to Black Mesa as we introduced Matt to Hannah Montana. Almost 4 years later, he can still sing some of the songs he heard that spring day.

Kellisa is all smiles at the start of the hike:

Views along the trail:

Most of the elevation gained on this hike can be seen in the picture below as the rocky trail works it's way up the side of Black Mesa:

The next 8 pictures were taken by Matt as I pushed Kellisa up the trail to the top of Black Mesa:

Looking back over the landscape from the top of Black Mesa:

Even though we made it to the top, we still needed to hike approximately 30 minutes along a relatively flat trail to the granite monument that marks the actual high point:

The top of Oklahoma:

At the edge of Black Mesa before we started our descent:

Kellisa still smiling back at the car:

Beautiful sunset as we leave the highpoint area:

Original Blog Post Date: January 20, 2012

Back to Kellisa's Path Blog

Kellisa Reaches 18

Lisa Marie Kain

May 23, 2017 - Kellisa's 18th birthday! A huge accomplishment and cause for us to be proud as we celebrate her life to this point. I've been agonizing about my post for this day since I was at a loss for a narrative. Lisa came to the rescue and for the first time in this blog's history, Lisa has written a post about this day and our gift of flights to Kellisa for her birthday.

Lisa's words:

On May 16th, we spent an entire day flying around the country to celebrate Kellisa's 18th birthday. 

By now, you may realize that Chris is a bit extreme when it comes to travel. Several months ago, he started talking with Southwest Airlines (his carrier of choice) about the potential to fly as many commercial flights as possible in one day. At that point, he had been working on the plan for a while but realized he needed their help to perfect the route. They were very supportive. A route was selected, and tickets were purchased. I was informed of this plan after the arrangements had been firmed up with Southwest. Chris knows I do not like to travel and gave me limited information about what the day would entail. When I decided to participate, I told him I did not want to know the specifics because I could not handle the truth. If I had any idea, I never would have gone on this trip, but I am so glad I did.

Kellisa's 18th Birthday Tour on Southwest Airlines

I'm sure most people don't travel from Tampa to Sacramento by commercial airlines and purposely schedule 8 stops along the way, but Kellisa is not most people. Kellisa loves to travel by any and all means as often as possible, but flying is probably her favorite. We were in the middle of our cross country move last year when Kellisa turned 17 and didn't really do anything special. Kellisa did have a huge Sweet 16 Adventure  and I wanted to top that weekend for her. Kellisa loves severe turbulence, but I couldn't guarantee a flight or flights with enough turbulence to make her happy, so I thought about how much she loves takeoffs and landings...especially if they're rough. Next thing I knew, I was researching on Southwest.com to see how many segments we could schedule for one day with as few change of planes and tight connections as possible since it's very difficult to transfer and run through airports with Kellisa. I reached out to Southwest for help on routing after spending many hours online and after a few weeks of back and forth emails, I selected the above itinerary because it allowed us to stay on the same plane the entire day. Southwest really came through for us.

Kellisa's stat line for the day: 

Naps- 0   Seizures- 3   Flight Segments- 8   Hours on Plane- 20 1/2   Total Awake Hours- Exactly 24

Much, Much more will be released about this day in the coming days and weeks!

Back to Kellisa's Path Blog

"Mile High Miracle"

Kellisa's First Flight

It happens on almost every Southwest flight and I'm sure it's not unique to just to one airlines. I'm surprised I've never seen this phenomenon covered in the news since it's so amazing and prevalent.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             My most recent article, "Waiting for Kellisa's Mile High Miracle" was published yesterday on Abilities.com.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          You can find a direct link to the article (here).

Kellisa's Sweet 16

May 23, 2015

Driving, planes, trains, hiking, swimming, and boats for a sweet 16 birthday celebration. Not bad for a girl who wasn't suppose to live more than a few minutes.

Emergency Landing

June 1, 2014

Why am I posting a picture of my tired girls on an empty plane? This picture was taken after our emergency landing in Baltimore. (Read all the details of our eventful flight here)

Clark Creek Nature Area

Mississippi

January 2014

Steep trails and a broken frame on Kellisa's Freedom Push Chair add to the adventure of our 2nd state hike in 2014. (More)

Woodall Mountain

Kellisa's 12th State Highpoint

Woodall Mountain, MS

812ft.

August 2009

We just returned home from our vacation to Crater Lake National Park and we wanted to summit Mississippi and Alabama before the new school year started. Still tired and a little jet-lagged, we over slept and missed our flight to Birmingham, AL. No worries as we were booked on Southwest. It ended up working better to reschedule our outbound flight to Nashville, TN while keeping our return flight from Birmingham. Unlike all other airlines, this last minute change did not cost us a penny in fees.

Kellisa enjoying the drive:

Most people probably don't think of mountains in Mississippi:

The rise from the surrounding area is more impressive than most of the "low" highpoints:

A dirt road leads directly to the summit:

Summit pictures:

The only real view from the summit: