An article in the Dallas Morning News speculates that Southwest may be considering offering inflight entertainment to compete with lowcost rival JetBlue and the addition of smaller aircraft to grow service to smaller markets. This on top of recent speculation that Southwest may offer assigned seating.

All this speculation comes in recognition of the challenges ahead for the most profitable airline in the industry over the past three decades. As a maturing carrier their costs are rising. New lowcost competitors like JetBlue are offering a superior inflight experience (all leather seating, satellite television, and they’re taking out a row of seats to offer more legroom). And the easy profitable growth routes may already be cherrypicked.