Southwest Airlines will start charging for checked bags on tickets purchased on or after 5/28/25

[Cornell]

Now that we've had 24 hours to process this, I'm predicting that these changes are going to be studied in MBA programs years from now as one of the biggest brand disasters in the US.

 

[geist1223]

If there has not been there should be a Business School Study on how when Investment Managers buy a Retail Chain they will drive it into bankruptcy within 5 to 10 years. Buy only after selling off the Crown Jewels and pocketing that money.

 

[jrb916]

If there has not been there should be a Business School Study on how when Investment Managers buy a Retail Chain they will drive it into bankruptcy within 5 to 10 years. Buy only after selling off the Crown Jewels and pocketing that money.

There’s been several. I just shared some w/ a co-worker whose husband works for Wal-greens. They are next joining toys r us, red lobster, bed, bath & beyond as of Thursday when they went private (equity).

My wife said it was time to get a different airline credit card based on this SW announcement. We just got back from a cruise where we each had 2 free checked bags. Even w/ the credit card, we will probably only get 1-2 free bags free.

 

[TolmiePeak]

Now that we've had 24 hours to process this, I'm predicting that these changes are going to be studied in MBA programs years from now as one of the biggest brand disasters in the US.

Why would you expect the results to be any different than the other airlines that charge for bags?

 

[TheHolleys87]

Why would you expect the results to be any different than the other airlines that charge for bags?

I’m seeing a lot of comments from people saying they’ve been flying SWA despite inconvenient schedules and rising airfares because of the free bags. Now they plan to change airlines. Time will tell whether or not SWA can hold onto those passengers.

 

[Cornell]

Why would you expect the results to be any different than the other airlines that charge for bags?

Brand Equity is the value that a brand name has to consumers. The primary airlines (United, AA, Delta) are kind of all interchangeable. Policies the same. People select based on price and route, which is related to where they live. They eventually may develop some loyalty which is centered around routes.

Southwest up until now was unique and kind of edgy (it was more so years ago). Look at their signage at the airport. It's the bags but more than that. The occasional free drink coupons. The way you select seats. The ease of cancelling trips and getting credit for them. Now that's all gone and they are just another airline. Nothing unique. Just another commodity. Brand equity has tremendous value which is actually hard to measure. This is really going to hurt them in the long run. Especially because they had a lot of very loyal customers who are now POed.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/southwest-airlines-obituary-checked-bag-fees-177e74a8?mod=lifestyle_lead_story

The airline didn’t have to blow up its carefully cultivated identity practically overnight. Southwest is Southwest because it’s different and touted that at every single turn. At Chicago’s Midway International Airport yesterday, banners everywhere still proclaimed its uniqueness. “No ketchup on our dogs. No fees on our flights.’’

 

[TolmiePeak]

Brand Equity is the value that a brand name has to consumers. The primary airlines (United, AA, Delta) are kind of all interchangeable. Policies the same. People select based on price and route, which is related to where they live. They eventually may develop some loyalty which is centered around routes.

Southwest up until now was unique and kind of edgy (it was more so years ago). Look at their signage at the airport. It's the bags but more than that. The occasional free drink coupons. The way you select seats. The ease of cancelling trips and getting credit for them. Now that's all gone and they are just another airline. Nothing unique. Just another commodity. Brand equity has tremendous value which is actually hard to measure. This is really going to hurt them in the long run. Especially because they had a lot of very loyal customers who are now POed.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/southwest-airlines-obituary-checked-bag-fees-177e74a8?mod=lifestyle_lead_story

The airline didn’t have to blow up its carefully cultivated identity practically overnight. Southwest is Southwest because it’s different and touted that at every single turn. At Chicago’s Midway International Airport yesterday, banners everywhere still proclaimed its uniqueness. “No ketchup on our dogs. No fees on our flights.’’

Well if Disney is a decent comparison.... People will whine all day long about the high prices and long lines and claim they are never going back.... 5 minutes late they book another trip.

Southwest made a horrible decision to move into Hawaii and fly interisland flights. They are losing a $1 billion per year there. They need to dump those routes now that Hawaiian isn't going anywhere. They need to just fly from the west coast to Hawaii in the morning and fly redeye flights back like everyone else is doing. Once they dump that money sink they will be fine.

 

[TolmiePeak]

I’m seeing a lot of comments from people saying they’ve been flying SWA despite inconvenient schedules and rising airfares because of the free bags. Now they plan to change airlines. Time will tell whether or not SWA can hold onto those passengers.

Why are their schedules any more inconvenient than other airlines? Once Frontier and Spirit go under they will move into those markets.

 

[Cornell]

Well if Disney is a decent comparison.... People will whine all day long about the high prices and long lines and claim they are never going back.... 5 minutes late they book another trip.

Southwest made a horrible decision to move into Hawaii and fly interisland flights. They are losing a $1 billion per year there. They need to dump those routes now that Hawaiian isn't going anywhere. They need to just fly from the west coast to Hawaii in the morning and fly redeye flights back like everyone else is doing. Once they dump that money sink they will be fine.

I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Disney completely unique without any direct competitors.

 

[TolmiePeak]

I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Disney completely unique without any direct competitors.

Universal is spending far more than Disney and is arguably a better experience at least in Orlando.

 

[Cornell]

Universal is spending far more than Disney and is arguably a better experience at least in Orlando.

I don’t think those are the same interchangeable experiences like the airlines I mentioned which are now all the same.

Disney has characters that go back generations. Completely unique.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Trying to use flight credits and couldn't use three to pay the entire airfare. Next time, I book each leg of our trip separate. I learned something new today.

 

[Superchief]

Now that we've had 24 hours to process this, I'm predicting that these changes are going to be studied in MBA programs years from now as one of the biggest brand disasters in the US.

I doubt that they did any good marketing research prior to this decision. They obviously don't understand what drives the purchase decision among those who have a choice between airlines to fly. They are eliminating one of their few competitive advantages.

 

[Cornell]

I doubt that they did any good marketing research prior to this decision. They obviously don't understand what drives the purchase decision among those who have a choice between airlines to fly. They are eliminating one of their few competitive advantages.

My entire career has been in market research that’s why I’m interested by this. Decisions seem to be made only for financial reasons. There is so much value in their brand name and they just blew it.

Southwest Airlines Makes Marketing's Biggest Mistake - Branding Strategy Insider

Once there was a really fun, spirited airline that flew out of Dallas, Texas. This airline positioned itself as “The End of the Plain Plane.” And, so it

brandingstrategyinsider.com

 

[gravityrules]

My entire career has been in market research that’s why I’m interested by this. Decisions seem to be made only for financial reasons. There is so much value in their brand name and they just blew it.

Southwest Airlines Makes Marketing's Biggest Mistake - Branding Strategy Insider

Once there was a really fun, spirited airline that flew out of Dallas, Texas. This airline positioned itself as “The End of the Plain Plane.” And, so it

brandingstrategyinsider.com

Nice article, and this was written before the changes announced yesterday. Killing your employee centric culture and enraging a significant number of customers just to become another commodity airline? I don't see a path to success here. So what is Elliot's path to extracting value?

 

[ScoopKona]

Why on earth do they want to make Southwest just another airline??

They don't want to. They're faced with passengers who abuse priority boarding. And free bags is great -- but we're in an era of a perpetual race to the bottom. "The bottom" has moved down far enough that free bags is no longer incentive enough.

Travelers like me are partially the reason for this. I'll fly the budget carriers cheerfully. I once paid $100 for a coast-to-coast round trip, all in. They got their hunskie. And that's all they got. No bags. No carry on. Just (as Spirit likes to put it), "your ass and gas." (I always pay for the exit row. But that was part of the total price.) The base fare was $9. How is Southwest going to compete against that without joining all the other carriers in the nickle-and-dime game?

This will likely be a net positive for me because since bags are no longer part of the all-in price. Under this paradigm, the people who need their stuff subsidize the people who do not.

 

[Cornell]

They don't want to. They're faced with passengers who abuse priority boarding. And free bags is great -- but we're in an era of a perpetual race to the bottom. "The bottom" has moved down far enough that free bags is no longer incentive enough.

Travelers like me are partially the reason for this. I'll fly the budget carriers cheerfully. I once paid $100 for a coast-to-coast round trip, all in. They got their hunskie. And that's all they got. No bags. No carry on. Just (as Spirit likes to put it), "your ass and gas." (I always pay for the exit row. But that was part of the total price.) The base fare was $9. How is Southwest going to compete against that without joining all the other carriers in the nickle-and-dime game?

This will likely be a net positive for me because since bags are no longer part of the all-in price. Under this paradigm, the people who need their stuff subsidize the people who do not.

There are all kinds of businesses who avoid the nickel & dime game bc it annoys & turns off a lot of customers. Not everyone is wired the same way. Lots of people would rather pay more vs getting a surcharge for every little thing. This psychology is true across the board in many industries not just the airlines. “Value” is not the same thing as “price” & many people are motivated by a good value,

 

[jorcus]

Nice article, and this was written before the changes announced yesterday. Killing your employee centric culture and enraging a significant number of customers just to become another commodity airline? I don't see a path to success here. So what is Elliot's path to extracting value?

Elliot management is a self serving firm that is an expert at extracting value from companies and country's that have large debt obligations. Like most Airlines South West has issued a sizable amount of debt. No doubt that Elliot has positioned it's self a large holder of the senior notes so they can can be the negotiator if and when South West goes bankrupt. If things start trending in that direction Elliot can actually help force the issue by selling stock while also selling the stock short to make money in a complex hedging strategy. This is something they did to the company I worked where they took advantage of a highly levered company with good cash flow but no way to restructure the extensive debt. The shareholders got wiped out Elliot more or less took over via owning the debt. After putting in new management and now the company has an agreement 4 years later to be sold. A the end of the day Elliot will find a way to win. It's like playing poker with a player who has 100 times more money than you do with all the time in the world to wait you out.

Having said that my personal experience in shopping for airfares never seemed to have me book on South West. When comparison shopping fares always seemed to be higher vs the other big 3 airlines for a similar class fare. Adding in a bag on the big 3 they would all seem to be in the ball park of each other but the lack of assigned seats was a turn off for us. At the end of the day it will always come back to running profitable routes.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

company I worked where they took advantage of a highly levered company with good cash flow but no way to restructure the extensive debt. The shareholders got wiped out Elliot more or less took over via owning the debt

LOL. That is how corporate finance works. Equity gets the (supposed) upside. Debt gets the assets. Shareholders get wiped out when they grow complacent, genuflect to existing, poorly-performing mgmt, and not only don't create value, but they issue " extensive debt".
Why the " extensive debt"? Look in the mirror. Nobody forced the company to become "highly levered." Bad biz plan. Bad execution.
Meet the new owner, not quite the same as the old owner. Oh wait, the BoD, the CEO and all the other execs combined own bupkis.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

once paid $100 for a coast-to-coast round trip, all in. They got their hunskie. And that's all they got. No bags. No carry on

Reacher?

 

[WaikikiFirst]

The anecdotes and folksy "brand" talk are entertaining. Too bad the knowledge of what caused SW to underperform all those "just another majors" is deemed completely irrelevant.
LUV fell by about 70% over the course of about 3 yrs, while the "just another major"s were doing OK. But yeah, that's a diamond they've got there. Maybe Elliott will change the brand to Bluestar Airlines. L-E-ottttttttttttt, phone home

 

[WaikikiFirst]

airfares never seemed to have me book on South West. When comparison shopping fares always seemed to be higher vs the other big 3 airlines for a similar class fare. Adding in a bag on the big 3 they would all seem to be in the ball park of each other

those free mkts seem to work once every so often ... I flew SW once in the last, maybe, 25 yrs. All that "uniqueness" was totally lost on me.

 

[TolmiePeak]

brand to Bluestar Airlines. L-E-ottttttttttttt, phone home

Blue horseshoe loves Anacott Steel but not Southwest.

 

[pedro47]

I disliked when Southwest allows handicapped passengers to purchase a lower price ticket and allow them to board the airline before Business Class Tickets purchaser

 

[Superchief]

Elliot management is a self serving firm that is an expert at extracting value from companies and country's that have large debt obligations. Like most Airlines South West has issued a sizable amount of debt. No doubt that Elliot has positioned it's self a large holder of the senior notes so they can can be the negotiator if and when South West goes bankrupt. If things start trending in that direction Elliot can actually help force the issue by selling stock while also selling the stock short to make money in a complex hedging strategy. This is something they did to the company I worked where they took advantage of a highly levered company with good cash flow but no way to restructure the extensive debt. The shareholders got wiped out Elliot more or less took over via owning the debt. After putting in new management and now the company has an agreement 4 years later to be sold. A the end of the day Elliot will find a way to win. It's like playing poker with a player who has 100 times more money than you do with all the time in the world to wait you out.

Having said that my personal experience in shopping for airfares never seemed to have me book on South West. When comparison shopping fares always seemed to be higher vs the other big 3 airlines for a similar class fare. Adding in a bag on the big 3 they would all seem to be in the ball park of each other but the lack of assigned seats was a turn off for us. At the end of the day it will always come back to running profitable routes.

This reminds me a lot of what Carl Icahn did to TWA.