Southwest Airlines faces a problem in bringing back customers, and it’s unique in the recent history of airlines. When customers search flights, they mostly see schedule and price. And they tend to book the cheapest option that will reasonably work for them.
United Airlines survived David Dao. JetBlue survived an operational meltdown that led to the ouster of founder Dave Neeleman. But Southwest is a little bit different. When customers go to Expedia or Google Flights, they do not see Southwest’s schedules and prices included in their options. That’s by Southwest’s design. Southwest wants customers to go to their own website so they cannot compare.
Now they need to convince customers that it’s safe to go to their website, to even see their flights as an option. I had someone ask me on Friday whether they should even consider Southwest. I was a little bit surprised by the reason why. Here’s the straightforward question.
My parents are coming up to DC in Feb. Do you think it is ok to fly Southwest? Will they recover from this Christmas debacle?
I started out with the obvious answer, that the reset of Southwest’s operation happened and the airline is back to usual reliability (for better and worse). While there are no guarantees for any given flight, the holiday debacle isn’t the reason why a flight might cancel at this point and shouldn’t be a reason to avoid them.
Then the reader then clarified, “I just wondered if they would go out of business with all the people threatening to sue, etc.”
And it struck me: you might not go out of your way to search them, even less so now, if you’re uncertain about their future. To be clear that is not a well-founded fear. But if it’s one that’s widely held it could become one.
I do believe Southwest will recover but they need to continue to take steps to reinforce customer confidence. Covering expenses and handing out points is a first step. So is operating reliably again. But they need to invest in marketing to encourage customers to return to their channels. That’s more than just a one-off airdrop of points.
Southwest should:
- Operate reliably and communicate clearly to customers that they’re doing so.
- Remind customers that they are a better experience in standard coach, and that’s not just the usual message about ‘bags fly free’. It’s marketing malpractice that they do not tell people they offer more legroom, generally 32 inches of pitch versus 30 on competitors.
- Offer incentives to bring people back. They need to leverage Rapid Rewards with generous promotions.
- Consider finally showing schedules and prices to consumers on third party sites like Expedia and Priceline.
In other words it’s time to get aggressive marketing the ways in which Southwest is better, and making it easy and rewarding to do business with the airline.
I agree. I would add that in my opinion even the marketing message of ‘bags fly free’ isn’t very well implemented. You know how many people I’ve talked to over the years that had no idea the Southwest offers 2 bags free? well, a lot. This is proof that they need to go on the offensive about their marketing as you suggested, and add new themes to win back customers as well as sharpen their marketing messages for new customers that have never flown southwest before (or hadn’t wished to do so for different reasons pre-meltdown)
Part of the reason that SW became popular was their low prices. However that’s been long gone as they are now often as much or in a lot of cases more expensive than competitors… this is why they don’t want you comparing prices. They need to reduce fares to draw customers back and then keep them with promos and their service.
Don’t forget that the customers who were directly impacted – who might be the most likely to defect to other airlines – were all given 25K+ apology points. Getting your next flights free is a strong incentive to give SW another chance, and if that trip goes well, it gets easy to forgive.
What struggle? Every affected customer received 25k points on top of refunds. It’s free round trip from West coast to Hawaii with more legroom than big 3, AL or HA (yes, I’m exaggerating, but just a little) Are you saying people are going to forfeit that? No way. From now on, I plan to book all my *inbound* holiday travel on Southwest, so it’s Ok if they have another meltdown – I will just stay there longer and enjoy free travel home yet another time. Of course, outbound is totally different story – I don’t want to jeopardize my vacation by booking Spirit, Southwest, Frontier and other cheapskates.
As an A List Preferred flyer for the past 5 years I ended up stuck in Nashville for 5 days the week between Christmas and New Years. If Southwest reimburses my hotel, meals, and laundry promptly and compensates me for my lost work days all will be forgiven. If not, I’ll fly my 100+ flights per year on a different carrier.
Never mind the meltdown. Bring back the gin & tonic!
Huge fan of Southwest historically, but recent failures will cast a long shadow on that view.
Booked American yesterday when comparable SWA itinerary was 2x the cost.
@Gary: Promote NO CHANGE FEES! Free cancellation up to 10 minutes before takeoff.
That is the significant difference. It makes them so much easier to do business with.
@Jeff Colen: I doubt it.
Southwest will be a trusted airline again soon. Most folks nowadays have a short attention span, if they’ve even heard about Southwest’s meltdown.
@L3 – The lagacy carriers now all have comparable flexibility (basic economy aside) as Southwest. No longer a meaningful differentiator.
Most US Americans are brainless fools…they will be flocking back to Southworst in no time.
SWA needs to spend $$$millions to upgrade their horribly dysfunctional computer systems—I experienced the worst 12/26 in DEN, and my checked bag supposedly will be delivered 2 weeks (!) after I checked it. Nice but totally meaningless to get 25K points…. Until SWA has fully upgraded software for passengers, flight crews, ground crews and in-flight (God know how old and dysfunctional that is!?), and is fully transparent about what it has done, my Points will just gather dust. No amount of “lower fares” can compensate for inept operations. And, everyone at SWA (other than line pilots), who is supposed to receive compensation (from all sources) of more than $200,000 in 2023 should get a mandatory reduction in total annual compensation for 2023 AND 2024 to $50,000/yr. Such crappy leadership deserves to be punished.
I was in the SW debacle on Christmas day and it completely ruined our Christmas. After all the problems with them, their systems, etc, I won’t be flying SW for a LONG time, at least until I know their systems have been upgraded. To me, that is the main problem is reassuring me that we will never have to go through this again, and just because the weather’s cleared for now, doesn’t mean that their systems are all fine and dandy. Plus we had to make a very long drive home (because no flights were available for a few days), with a very expensive rental car. If they don’t reimburse me for that, or they take months to reimburse me, that will also add to my impression of how well they’re doing. I would rather pay more and fly with American or someone else.
Also, and maybe it’s just me, but the 25,000 points just didn’t seem like that much for all that we went through that day/night.
@Scott: Never happened before.
25,000 points is worth nothing if you don’t plan to fly SW so please send them to me. THks!
@GregsDC: That is very misleading. Delta has temporarily copied SW, AA has not.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/plan-travel/extras/same-day-travel.jsp
@Cecily Drucker: You sould like exactly the kind of person the American public needs running airlines. Tell us, can you do a duck impression as well?
@L3 I thought the US3 got rid of change fees too. At least I know UA did. That just leaves the bags fly free part, though it’s pretty easy for the higher yielding pax to avoid bag fees (elite status, credit card, premium cabin) in the the first place.
The reason SW doesn’t show their prices on Expedia & Co is because they are not competitive.
I live in San Jose, CA (a SW hub). 9 out of 10 times if I compare SW to other options it comes out as more expensive, more connections or longer total flight time.
@Blaz Zupan: Whereas in Dallas, a much more important SW hub, that isn’t true. I don’t think your theory survives the first obstacle.
This is GREAT for me!! I fly FREE on SW but for the last couple of years there have been NO extra seats. Maybe I can fly the sky while everyone boycotts SW. sad :(. I have flown SW since they opened. I have many friends and family members that work for SW. They will recover and those of you saying you will not fly SW will be back, wait and see. 🙂
No one has mentioned the best feature of Southwest for me – the choose your own seat boarding system that gives you the opportunity for nearly-guaranteed first boarding group status just by paying an Early Bird checkin fee of around $20 per flight leg. It’s well worth it from my perspective to be spared the anxiety I face while waiting to board other carriers of “will my boarding group 3 or 4 status protect me from having to gate-check my carry-on bag?”
Upgrade computer system and stop running the schedules so hot! They need redundancy and NOT setup such that failures cause “domino effects”
and disrupt bunches of future flights!
The way this article is written is odd, because it is not written for the customer to read, but for Southwest execs. What’s your game?
L3 is dead wrong. No change fees on any Big3 carrier.
@Gregg:
https://www.valuepenguin.com/travel/how-much-does-it-cost-to-change-cancel-flight
I will be taking a break flying Southwest. As a business flyer it does not make sense to book flight out a day before meetings to make sure I make the meeting.
When I can see improvements on their systems I will be back.
Everyone keeps mentioning the free points. Wait until the complaint tweets start rolling in from people trying to cash in their points but can’t find any flights. Or that they want to take 2 to 4 seats using points on a flight and can’t seem to book them. SWA still wants to make money and you think they can do that when half a flight is flying free with points they gave away to make up for their Holiday meltdown?
Nearly twenty years with Southwest, a decade as an every-weeker. They don’t have to win me back, I am not going anywhere.
Even through the rough few days they had, the employees were kind and patient, and their schedule was back to normal almost immediately.
Who is paying media sources to produce a horror story every single day about the melt-down? I am betting it’s the other airlines with promises of ad dollars.
#SouthwestStilltheBest
They have a lock on a lot of routes. OAK/SFO to Dallas there is no competition unless you want to fly Alaska with a stopover in Minneapolis, or Spirit, and bring your own toilet paper.
I arrived at Tulsa ok airport on 12-22-22 to see that my flight to Denver Co had been cancelled. Customer service representative, Heather assisted me getting a flight to Las Vegas that afternoon which was 9 hours later. I was happy with that because at least that got me closer to my destination of ca. Although I was out about $250.00 due to a hotel, shuttle and food. I was able to get to ca on Friday 12-23-22
My husband and I flew SW on 1/7/23…no problems at all. Arrived on time with no delays. The flight crew and desk agents were all so nice. I plan to continue flying SW when I can if they are rates are lower or the same as other airlines. I just love the rates and their boarding system. I will continue to patronize them…but I must say it would be nice if they rewarded their true customers equal to or better than the ones most likely to leave. SW.
To win back the customers affected, own up to what happened and why, and FIX IT. Only then will folks trust them for any important travel. And a big marketing campaign explaining what they did to make sure this never happens again.
@wsanders: Gret news! There are 104 nonstop non-Southwest flights from Dallas to SFO every day! You have lots of choice – more than almost any other city pair in the USA.
Lucky you!
I suggest you tell the person who told you that SWA “had a lock” on the route that they need to do their research a lot more carefully as the information they are giving you is totally inaccurate and embarrassing you when you repeat it.
We flew SW during the meltdown. We had a harbinger of things to come on Dec 23 when our flight SJC-PHX was delayed 3 (!) Hours due to a missing flight attendant. (The gate agent made the wait tolerable…brought out snacks and led a rousing round of “YMCA” that my wife and I each won a pair of SW socks). The return flight on the 29th was canceled so we booked on UA to SFO. We received our 25k points each, but I haven’t seen my reimbursement yet. It’s been over a week but I’m trying to be patient. Reimbursement will go a long way to creating goodwill with SW…that, and fixing their scheduling software.
I was lucky enough to get my refund and the 25k reward points , I was really bummed and sad I didn’t get to spend Christmas with my daughter again due to her deployment, two months ago she finally got stationed back in the States, So now with my Reward Points I rescheduled my flight , We will be Celebrating Christmas in February, I hope and pray nothing else goes wrong with the airlines.