Spirit’s bankruptcy filing blamed Southwest’s changes for forcing industry-wide price declines (which of course isn’t all bad for consumers, I’ve noticed much better domestic pricing on a bunch of flights this summer and fall):
Spirit’s filing says that Southwest’s business model changes (e.g. bag fees, seat fees, expiring travel credits, basic economy) met customer resistance and they responded by slashing domestic pricing.
Southwest has not gone to the point of introducing super-basic economy fares that do not include an overhead bin bag. However, the increased competitiveness around overhead bin space that (predictably) resulted from going from 2 to 0 included checked bags and the attendant slowdowns in boarding may add pressure to introduce such fares.
Basically, Spirit is being squeezed out because the other airlines (e.g. United, American, Delta) have moved in its business model, but have the advantage of loyal frequent flyers who continue to fly them because their frequent flyer status gives them perks to insulate them from some of the limitations. Southwest becoming like those airlines just adds more competition to that same space (while vacating the space that Southwest formerly occupied).
Spirit went bankrupt 2x in a year - granted the Biden admin wrecked their savior plan by denying their merger with Jet Blue.
But you can’t really trust what Spirit said. They were bk. Came out - and went BK again.
They’re finding blame for their own issues.
There’s others - Frontier, Allegiant, upstarts like Breeze and Avelo filling the void of Spirit’s incompetence.
After Southwest begins to do pre-assigned seats (with likely slower boarding, resulting in greater turnaround times and therefore less use of each aircraft), its main differentiation will be in which routes it flies, with a somewhat less hub-focused network.
Question for everyone here: for your own air travel preferences, will these Southwest changes make Southwest more or less desirable for you to fly on?
Significantly less desirable for me.
It’s so bad. And they are running ads for assigned seats like it’s a good thing. Today I’M A22. - nothing to think about. Perhaps it’s an appeal for new bus but business SW customers don’t seem to like it.
I guess next year I’ll need to think.
plus had to pay $70 for bags for my kid. We thought it was covered. She’s on the credit card. But not primary. So not covered.
When I look at flights now, for the first time in a long time I’m shopping others. I recently flew Allegiant - was very good and 1/3 the price. I wouldn’t have b4.
Big shout out to TSA and the other impacted folks in Nashville. Everything seems to be on time.
I am done with SW…unless I’m just flying direct to BWI. Their layovers at BWI and Midway were close to 4 hours on my most recent trips…which is up from about 2 hours. I could deal with a 2 hour layover, but FOUR? No thanks. And so few direct flights (unless you are flying to Midway or BWI).
The price differential between SW and many other carriers just went away. And if your SW flight gets cancelled, they have no relationships with other airlines to get you where you are going.
I used the last of my SW points to get my last ticket. I think I’m done with them for good.
I know this is a minority opinion but I’m glad they’re moving to assigned seating.
Anyway, the changes won’t really affect whether or not we use Southwest, which is almost always because it’s the most convenient for a route. There’s not much overlap between airlines on the routes we tend to use.
SWA used to be our go to, and we chose them because of the open seating and bag policy. I do have some SWA points, and once those are used up, I will probably only choose SWA for lights to Baltimore.
We tend to use JetBlue more these days and had a great experience on Breeze…just wish that they had more direct flights from CT but they do seem to be expanding.
We’ve used SW more since JetBlue left our most convenient airport (which SW has a lot of flights out of). I really liked JetBlue but it’s just not … there anymore!
We live in the metro area of a Southwest hub. So for the time being, I expect that we’ll still be flying Southwest a lot.
I AM annoyed that purchasing early bird check in is now more expensive than before, so that sucks.
When they start assigning seats, won’t this go away?
Of course, to be replaced by an extra charge to get a preassigned seat.
I probably won’t use Southwest again. The free luggage was the main reason I used them, plus the lack of assigned seating. I really liked how organized and calm the boarding process was, instead of people mobbing the entrance.
I noticed the former $20 upcharge to get the ability to change to any flight on the same day is not $40 because it is part of the next package, which includes stuff that I already get with a credit card. It was worth $20, but not $40.
I wanted to book a flight to Nashville with only about 10 days advance and it was too expensive, about $200 more than the normal bargain of $60-150. So I’m not going. It was about the same price as United. I could have gone on a 12 hour journey to Midway and Indianapolis and finally gotten to Nashville, but I’m not doing that.
We’ll see if it is worth keeping the credit card.
We’ve got the SW card, too.
This switch happened just as I became a carry-on girl and eschewed checking a bag so the perk of the two free bags and now one free bag is less of a draw. However, I’m using the one-bag perk now to rid ourselves of the kids’ things. Every time we fly, I take an old Rubbermaid tub and fill it full of things that belong to whichever son we are visiting. Southwest Swedish death cleaning.
I’ll keep the card for now, but I’ve never flown enough to get the free companion pass and other perks. I would regularly use credits to reduce the cost of tickets, but that’s about it. And for now I’ll use it to get the free bag.
Because I’m A List I’ll probably have lots of advantage - like free standby and pick of seat but it used to be I could confirm a change at midnight for next day. Now on the cheapest fare I have to show up at the airport and get on a list.
But from Nashville Southwest dominates so ..I just just flew to Albany NY of all places
And next year they start flying to Alaska.
Southwest went from two to zero (not one) included checked bags for most passengers. Hence getting overhead bin space is more competitive now, an inconvenience for carry-on only passengers.
SW card owners still get one free bag.