© Thomas Hawthorne/Imagn
Southwest Airlines is where “bags fly free.” Everybody who flies with any sort of regularity knows this. It’s the company’s whole shtick. And while Southwest flights may be a bit more expensive than, say, Frontier or Spirit, if you know you’re traveling with a significant amount of luggage and want a dependable airline, Southwest was always the answer.
Or, at least, is used to be the answer. Southwest made the stunning announcement on Tuesday that it plans to get rid of its “bags fly free” policy and introduce a new basic economy option. CNBC reports that the change was lobbied for by Elliott Investment Management. The investment company purchased a stake in Southwest last year and won five board seats and immediately pushed for changes on checked bags, changeable tickets and open seating.
In September, Southwest revealed that it would gain between $1 billion and $1.5 billion from charging for bags but lose $1.8 billion of market share. Clearly those numbers have changed since.
The move comes just one month after the airlines unveiled new seats in their airplanes that frequent flyers also slammed. The new “paper thin” seats will allow the company to put more passengers on each flight, but likely harm the comfort of travel, which was already uncomfortable as is.
Unsurprisingly, previously loyal customers are already voicing their displeasure and planning to fly on other airlines.
“If Southwest Airlines had assembled a focus group and asked them ‘what’s the stupidest thing that we could do to ruin our company,’ this is what they would have come up with,” one person tweeted.
“Southwest letting you check 2 bags for free was the ONLY thing keeping them in business. If I gotta pay for BOTH bags now AND you cost just as much as a BETTER airline, why wouldn’t I go with them instead? Their pockets are about to HURT!! This won’t last long,” said another.
In the interim, Southwest stock is currently up nearly 9% just today. So in the short-term, it looks like a win in the eyes of the investment group. But things could get ugly very quickly in the coming months should customers flock to competitors.