Goodbye to “Baggage Free” on Southwest Airways, the final giveaway in America

By UMass Mag On Mar 16, 2025

Passengers check on February 18, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois, for Southwest Airlines Flight at Chicago Midway International Airport.

Scott Olson | Getty pictures

Almost nothing is guaranteed in life. Certainly not weather, electricity, health, tariffs or eggs. But American consumers have been able to rely on it for more than 50 years Southwest Airlines Let them check them for free.

The southwest resident in Dallas ends the guideline in May. Customers are not happy.

“It was the only reason why I flew to the southwest,” said Makensey Kaye Alford, a 21-year-old singer and actress who lives near Birmingham, Alabama.

Alford, who later wants to move to New York City this year, said that she would “definitely” consider to take another airline now.

The customer-friendly guidelines from Southwest have survived recessions, oil price peaks and even the Covid 19 pandemic and won it to Goodwill and a loyal followers for years, even if it has grown. No other airline has more people in the USA than southwest.

Now the airline is under the pressure to increase the profit with unrivaled profitability radiation (it has almost never recorded an annual loss) because large competitors exceed the airline. Therefore, it has banished for years to banish the thoughts of calculating customers for bags and increasing other business changes as assigned seats that offer more together with all other airlines.

Customers against investors

On February 18, 2025, passengers check for Southwest Airlines Flight at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago.

Scott Olson | Getty pictures

The decision -making of Southwest makes investors against customers.

The activist hedge fund and in the previous year the Big Southwest shareholder Elliott Investment Management increased the pressure on the airline to increase its profits because rivals such as Delta and United have prompted them. Elliott pushed on the airline, which was hesitant for a long time to change faster changes so that it could increase sales. The company won five board seats in a settlement with southwest last year.

After Southwest had presented the bag shift and other political changes, their shares rose almost 9% this week, while Delta, United and American fell by more than 11%. CEOS of all airlines expressed concerns about the weaker travel question, but southwest has opposed the trend because the changes expected to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the end result.

“The shareholder activism transforms LUV into a company that we believe that they are finally interested,” wrote Dan McKenzie, analyst of SeaPort Research Partners Airline, on Wednesday when he increased his price goal to Southwest's shares to 39 US dollars, although “Makro -background is glowing”.

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Southwest Airlines against Delta Air Lines and American Airlines

The decision to ward off the two freely checked pockets is part of the airline's great profit liability, in which other long-term offers such as open-stinging and cabins with individual classes for seating and more expensive additional legroom options are replaced.

It will also start to offer a no-frill, the ticket for basic economy ticket without changes. Inculeships will soon have process data. Southwest had his first mass layoff in the past month and lowered about 15% of company jobs. It also broke up unprofitable flies.

The flight was not yet quiet in the last half century and while it is recorded in many nuclear wounds, it has no southwest. It has gradually made changes over the years and, for example, started selling things like early boarding. Air travel is required for both customers assigned seats, and in order to simplify the jobs of employees, the managers in the southwest have argued.

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Charging for checked bags was something that the leaders from the southwest would repeat more than it could do. (US airlines brought in luggage fees in 2023 more than 7 billion US dollars.)

In a presentation on an investor day last September, Southwest said that it would win between $ 1 billion and $ 1.5 billion through the fee for bags, but would lose 1.8 billion US dollars to market share.

The executives of Southwest said that had changed.

Hours after CEO Bob Jordan had broken the news to customers, he said on Tuesday at a JPMorgan industry conference that “in contrast to our previous analysis, the actual customer booking behavior did not show through our new booking channels such as Metasearch that we have prompted our bundled offer with freelance sac, which to update us to the assumptions.”

Jordan added that the carrier has new managers with “direct experience in the implementation of pocket fees in several airlines, and this also contributed to further validating the new assumptions”.

Shifting of Maverick Airline

But thousands of CRI de Coeur joined consumers.

Southwest posted on Instagram on Thursday, two days after his bomb announcement and said: “It is not as if we acted Luka”, an allusion to the shocking trade with Dallas Mavericks Superstar Luka Doncic to Los Angeles Lakers. Until Friday afternoon, the post, which also contained information about the change, received more than 14,000 answers, far more than a few hundred answers that normally received the account.

“Make a screenshot about it because it is the thumbnail for the case study for the Harvard Business Review, in which a brand is destroyed by an entire company,” replied Instagram user Rappid_exposure.

Frances Frei, Professor of Technology and Operating Management at Harvard Business School, said that in fact, no other company is being studied than southwest.

“I hope that this is not a case of activist investors who come in and insist on a number of decisions that they are not nearby to endure,” she said. “Large organizations are being built over time. It doesn't take long for an organization to be ruined, and I really don't want this to be an example of this.”

Wetten the house

Southwest Airlines napkins have long advertised the free pocket guideline of the carrier and other advantages.

Zac Jankovsky

Southwest's two checked pocket pilot facilities officially ended on May 28, but the slogan can still be found on board, printed on cocktail napkins.

There will be exceptions: Customers with a Credit Card with Southwest Airlines can get a bag free of charge, and customers in the top service levels (read: more expensive tickets) or the members of the top animal loyalty program receive one to two free check bags.

It remains to be seen whether customers leave the southwest or simply react to the change.

The CEOs of Delta, United and Spirit this week said an opportunity to win customers who could turn away from the southwest.

However, many travelers will not have many other options, with so much consolidation among the US airlines and high -altitude hubs, even though they may have to venture into other airports.

Southwest has a share of around 73% at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, a share of more than 83% at the International Airport of San Francisco Bay Oakland and 89% to Long Beach, California, according to the aviation data company Cirium.

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The real test, said Harvards, will be whether the change of bag will slow down the operation of the southwest. Other customers bring hand luggage bags on board to avoid the opposing luggage fees.

“I'm just afraid that the costs will be underestimated,” she said. “It is a real operational damage to the southwest if you get slower.”

Southwest is already preparing his employees for a rush of the customer baggage at the goal.

Shortly after his announcement on Tuesday, Southwest informed his employees in a memo that the customers “undoubtedly become more luggage than before”.

Gate Agents receive mobile BAG-TAG printer “Reduce the need for string-BAG tags”, and the company designs new hand movement leaders so that customers can see whether their luggage like one of Justin Jones, EPP of Operations, and Adam Decaaire, Senior Vice President of Network Planning, Supported Personnel Memo, from the CNP, classified as employees can be.

The airline also plans to accelerate retrofits of its Boeing 737-800 and Max Aircrafts with larger overhead waste bins.

Free for bags, in contrast to the Costco 1.50 dollar -Hot Dog, is not a loss operator that a company sells with a loss is just to win customers who may buy more expensive and more profitable articles.

As much as it was loved by customers, the checked pocket guideline also had the aircraft faster to make aircraft faster.

“The reason is not that it is friendlier for customers. It is because it is a quick turnaround airline,” she said. “When I list for bags, you will rather wear more luggage on board. If you wear more luggage on board, I will lose my fast turnaround advantage.”

Southwest is confident that it is prepared for an increase in bags and luggage on board.

“We have a number of working streams that are underway with our current operations so as not to influence our times,” said Coo Andrew Watterson in an interview.

Time will show how it is treating itself. At the moment we have the 1.50 dollar -costco -hot dogs.