Tag Archives for southwest airlines.
Southwest Airlines is revamping its product with extra legroom seats, less legroom in back of the aircraft, redeye flying and partnerships with other airlines.
These are the beginnings of mostly smart changes, but don’t go far enough or fast enough. In the end, though, they’re likely directionally correct given the constraints the airline fares. There’s no going back to historic profitability metrics and growth potential under the old model. That means their future is different; closer to a legacy airline. That’s largely inevitable both in terms of product and financial performance, and thus stock performance.
Southwest Airlines is known for the games people play to secure the best seats, because the airline doesn’t assign seats – it’s first-board, first-served. They do assign your boarding order, but passengers save seats for each other, and there’s no rule against it.
Southwest Airlines will announce major changes to how they’ll operate this coming Thursday. It’s Investor Day, and the change to lay out plans that have been spurred by activist investor Elliott Management. We know some of what they have planned from previous earnings calls, but they’ve told s that more changes and details will come out in their planned investor presentation.
Going through the whole message to employees there’s a lot that’s interesting about Southwest’s positioning – and problems. The airline doesn’t see the same sort of business travel they used to, and much of their network is still optimized for non-stop business travel on the West Coast. That needs to change, and they need to seek out more connections.
Southwest Airlines lets passengers pick their seats on a first-come, first-served basis. You board earlier if you buy the most expensive tickets, if you’re a frequent traveler, or if you pay for early boarding. Or if you fake the need for a wheelchair.
That’s why Southwest Airlines has more wheelchair passengers than any other airline.
I love the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass. You can bring someone with you when you travel for just the cost of taxes as long as there’s a seat for sale. It doesn’t matter whether you’re buying your own ticket with cash or spending points.
And you can change your selected companion up to three times during the companion pass’s validity.
I don’t like lining up to board on Southwest Airlines because I don’t really want to board 30 minutes prior to departure, and stand at the gate even earlier than that. But I do like Southwest’s first-come, first-served style of seating. Southwest says I’m in the small minority on this, but hear me out. I’m really going to miss the Southwest Airlines boarding process when they move to assigned seats.
With greater Elliott sway, and Kelly leaving, rumors are swirling in Dallas that other changes pushed by Elliott will be implemented. We may or may not learn details at the airline’s investor day this month. Two major changes that are being widely discussed at headquarters are an anticipated end to free checked bags, and the introduction of basic economy.
Here’s what basic economy would look like if Southwest moves forward, I am told.
This is a pretty good offer for Southwest and for customers. They’ll give you a free companion to travel with you for about two months if you book just two one way flights right away (and use them for travel in the next couple of months). Registration required.
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 »
