Looks like Delta carried more passengers in 2023…
That has happened to me also.
BUT many other airlines will take passengers from others…if flights are cancelled. And you don’t pay them…the airlines have some arrangement.
Those basic economy fares are the ones that show up on air fare search web sites.
Sorry. Use this. I meant domestic travel only. Southwest. Link works for me but not pasted. Here’s a pic.
Btw look at spirit and jet blue. The feds blocked. Assinine. And spirit went bk.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109993/largest-airlines-north-america-passengers/
If Southwest becomes another generic airline rather than having a somewhat differentiated product, then it will likely need to enter rebooking agreements with other airlines.
However, airlines still prefer to rebook on themselves even if a more convenient flight for the passenger is available on another airline that they have a rebooking agreement with.
Frontier charges for everything, and charges even more if you are forced to gatecheck (cuz you thought taking a backpack was okay). I do not fly Frontier. Ever. SW will fall into that category for me.
SW doesn’t fare share with other airlines. They won’t even transfer luggage if you switch airlines so you have to pick up the luggage, recheck it with another airline, and then go back thru security - they are two separate tickets so just hope your first flight isn’t delayed. I was fine with the inconvience when SW was cheaper, but not anymore.
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I have flown on a Frontier-like airline with a backpack that easily fit in the “personal item” sizer (“personal item” was included). But I saw that most people had trouble getting their bags in the sizers.
But it seems like most airlines these days are emulating the Frontier/Spirit business model.
I only use Google to compare - when you click on a flight it gives you all the fare options
I flew spirit frontier and allegiant.
I think their downfall is not the charges for large carryons - but that people just go on board and they don’t confront them.
So people appeared to me to be taking them for free.
I just bought my son spirit from fll to chs for $64 vs $320 on sw. He’ll take nothing but even if he did, would they stop him and say - you didn’t pay for that bag ?
I doubt it.
I think I’ll go back to flying Delta and United.
We have also had good luck with Breeze.
We used to use SW almost anytime we could but the last few trips we used United and couldn’t be happier.
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On the Frontier-like airline I flew on, they required putting the bag in the sizer and then tagged it as an allowed personal item or paid for carry on, so that the airline people can know whether the bag has been “approved” to bring on board (and put in the overhead bin if tagged as a paid for carry on).
Oh they will. Frontier charged my daughter $70 at the gate for her backpack and it wasn’t big, and $70 for her boyfriend’s. One the way back they combined into one bag and checked it, and I think it was $35. They left some stuff with his parents to pick up the next time they visited. Other daughter saw Frontier charge a family hundreds of dollars for carryons. And they do make sure anything you carry on goes under the seat and not in the overhead, even if they are empty.
But sure, try to challenge them if you’re feeling lucky.
I told her I would have put on everything in the backpack and then squished that into a pocket.
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I’ve been on Spitit, Frontier and Allegiant - all once. Saw bags that couldn’t be free and I saw no check of them. Perhaps they were covered in the boarding pass scan.
I was not stopped for my personal item which size wise was iffy at best.
I’ll continue with Southwest but they own Nashville. So it makes sense. The amount of nonstop cities is staggering vs others.
But if work makes me take the ultra cheap fares it’ll suck. Only 2x per points. I’m A List so that’s no issue and will get the cc every two years - nice bonus - 85k points last time. And that makes companion easy. Will this change ? In time we’ll find out.
We just saw Billy Joel in Indy. My kid flew from Ft Myers non stop. Delta - atl or Detroit, AA CLT or Philly - that’s the SW beauty.
In the end, one way or another, customers will speak.
A couple years ago, they were telling people they would be charged if they had more than 1 carry on and 1 personal item. So a purse, backpack, and carryon? nope. Put the purse in the backpack. Blankets had to go in a backpack, etc. They were checking based on boarding passes as well.
Big SW fliers here (Phoenix) though never fans of open seating. These changes have taken SW off our preferred list. Just booked our one-way summer flight to Maine, first time flying Jet Blue. From now on, all flights will be selected on price only regardless of carrier.
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It’s a little frustrating, but like most things in life, things change and don’t stay the same forever. I’m not going to miss the Southwest seat savers…the people who have early boarding group #s and they save seats for the entire rest of their group who is boarding the plane later.
Nor will I miss the boatload of parents who seem to think that “families with young children” means “anybody under age 18.” And no, I’m not talking about families with older children where the children are disabled.
I’m not going to miss the regular questions asking for people to volunteer to switch seats so children can sit together. Now if you want your family to sit together, purchase a more expensive ticket with a reserved seat. Then your group can all sit together no problem.
What I really wish, though, is that people wouldn’t bring stinky food on board airplanes. One time, a woman a few rows up from me brought a container of warm reheated broccoli. The entire front half of the plane stunk for the entire flight! 
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You missed the group who need 10 wheelchairs to embark but apparently only one to disembark…
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Those are called “miracle” flights.
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This is a little bit like broken window theory. Those who pay early bird for everyone at first see others doing this, so then they start doing it themselves. Our last trip this past weekend (to Indian wells tennis, yay) we had an A lister in the group so …she did that, although both times she checked that the plane wasn’t full first. In fact on the return flight one of the flight attendants “helped” by standing in the row across that she was saving. AFAIK this isn’t SW policy at all (I think technically you are not allowed to save seats, though I’ve never seen anyone being told they can’t). Did I feel a twinge of guilt? Yes, but it lessened as I was walking past all the other seats that were being saved. As I said before, I am not an open seating fan.