Tag Archives for southwest airlines.
After departing at 9:21 a.m. Mountain time from Denver, it looks like these passengers finally arrived at Dallas Love Field at 11:46 p.m. Central – 13.5 hours to travel 650 miles. This double diversion was certainly not Southwest’s fault amidst weather, but they could have driven.
Southwest Airlines quietly raised checked bag fees on Tuesday. This has gotten little notice.
Southwest Airlines didn’t exactly surrender to Elliot Management, but they agreed to put 5 Elliot nominees on a 13-member board of directors in exchange for their dropping the petition for a special meeting of the board.
Already, the airline has given Elliot much of what they were asking for. The activist investor spurred movement on assigned seating, premium seating, partnerships, and redeye flying which are things Southwest had moved very slowly on.
Everyone is taking Elliott seriously, noting correctly that the airline has underperformed and failed to maximize its assets, and suggesting that current management doesn’t deserve to stay and execute on its own turnaround plan – without every questioning the seriousness or sincerity of Elliott’s own plan. But all you have to do is watch a famous old movie to get up to speed quickly.
One week ago, air traffic control screwed up in San Diego, clearing two Southwest Airlines flights onto the same runway at the same time, leading to a high-speed aborted takeoff – but which could have been much worse.
Over the summer the FAA launched a safety audit of Southwest Airlines. This came after the airline came within feet of the water while still miles from Tampa less than a month after another of the airline’s 737s descended to just over 500 feet while still 9 miles out from the Oklahoma City airport. In April, a Southwest Airlines flight in Hawaii came within 400 feet of the Pacific Ocean. Then in June a Southwest Airlines flight took off from a closed runway Southwest has shared internally some of the issues that FAA inspectors have flagged during the Certificate Holder Evaluation Process Safety Audit. I suppose some of these are better than the pilots who spent a flight watching video feed of passengers in the lavatory? The airline declined comment since “[t]he CHEP is still…
Elliott has been talking to institutional shareholders. I can’t imagine they call for a vote they don’t think they can win. And that would mean that Southwest ousts its CEO and more closely follows Elliott’s prescriptions which turn the airline into JetBlue and American Airlines – more fees, fewer perks.
Here’s an underrated problem that will be solved once Southwest Airlines finally moves to assigned seating next year. We already know that it will end seat savers and wheelchair cheaters. But that’s not the only effect.
No one seems more concerned with assigned seating on Southwest Airlines than the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.
Of course Southwest is making a lot of changes to improve revenue, pushed by activist investor Elliott Management. They might choose to revise their policy of refunding extra seat purchases on flights that aren’t sold out. And they haven’t said they won’t do it!
CEO Bob Jordan, in his opening remarks, says that they’ve achieved compensation from Boeing for its delays – delays that, ultimately, have been good for Southwest in many ways – through credits on future deliveries. And he wants to “unlock” that economic value.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
