Well, it finally happened. They caved. As of May 28 no more “Two Bags Fly Free” for Southwest flyers. Well at least not for all of them. As recently as last September, the airline that the iconic Herb Kelleher built, was denying that such a move would ever happen.
That was just a couple of months after the airline’s July ’24 announcement that it would be abandoning its beloved boarding-by-numbers system and charging for advance seat selection.
To most industry observers, the only surprise here is that it has taken LUV so long to follow just about every other global airline. In an industry where ancillary revenues are increasingly the difference between good and bad results, presumably Southwest’s bean-counters have now divined that they were leaving more revenue on the table by not charging for bags than the value of the market share it was driving.
Despite on-going consumer pushback, the à la carte pricing model that has reinvented airline revenue management over the last couple of decades, makes for an altogether ‘fairer fare’ than the once ubiquitous prix fixe – all inclusive – variety. While one still hears whines about airlines scamming them for all the stuff that was once “free” like bags, seat selection, drinks and snacks, the simple fact is that none of those things were ever truly gratis. When your ticket entitled you to check a couple of 23KG bags and you checked only one at 15KG, or took only carry-on, you were subsidizing the folks that took full advantage of the deal. Likewise, when you drank only one Coke while the sot across the aisle drained everything the cart had to offer, you were effectively paying for his drinks too.
It’s exactly 20 years since Air Canada removed the “free” catering from its domestic services and moved to the ‘buy-on-board’ model. And boy, do I remember it well. I was in my second day as Senior VP Customer Service at AC when that evening I was thrust onto a live, national, CBC radio broadcast. The indignant interviewer on the other end of the line opened the grilling with, “So who’s the idiot at Air Canada who decided to do away with the free food and drink?” I didn’t exactly pacify her my tongue-in cheek (or just plain cheeky) response of, “Well that’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say anything about airline food other than to complain about its quality.”
With the passage of time however, fewer and fewer people remember the old all-included/prix fixe days, so the complaints are diminishing greatly. Everywhere that is, except at Southwest, where, for the next ten years or more, a whole new generation of flyers will have ‘the good old days’ of boarding by number lines, first-come first-served seat section and two ‘free’ checked bags to grumble about.
As for old Herb’s likely view on all this, one of his most quoted quotes was “If you don’t change you die.” He then expanded on that thought with, “If things change faster outside your company than they change inside your company, then you have something to worry about.” I guess, even from the grave, that might be taken as approval for all the changes coming down the pipe.
Or, as my old boss Richard Branson likes to say, this could simply be another one of those “Screw it let’s do it” decisions.
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