Southwest Airlines is going to start confiscating passenger bags at the gate on almost every flight once they begin charging for checked bags in two months.
More people check bags today on Southwest than any other airline in the world, because they don’t charge extra. When that stops, the airline estimates that their checked baggage volume may drop 30%. And most of those bags are going to try to squeeze in to passenger cabins. There’s just not enough room. And that’s going to be a problem for Southwest Airlines on-time reliability, and it’s going to be a huge problem for customer experience.
Justin Jones, Executive Vice President of Operations at Southwest Airlines appeared on this week’s episode of Airlines Confidential and he answered candidly and earnestly about the operational challenges involved in some of the changes that Southwest will be making to its business model as it becomes ‘just like every other airline but less than’ with assigned seating, basic economy, checked bag fees and a devalued frequent flyer program.
There were a lot of smiles over ‘how is this going to work’ when Southwest Airlines starts charging for checked bags, and there’s an influx of bags into the cabin.
- They are going to be “extremely hesitant to do heavily policing on bag size” like at “some other airlines.” And he acknowledges that means even more gate checking of bags because those oversized bags take up more room in the bins, meaning room for fewer total bags.
- “Houston gates still have an old cable system” for gate checking bags, that can handle up to 10 bags at a time and they’re “going to have to replace that” just because they know the gate checking of bags is going to go up so much. However, he says, “we did think through some of this ahead of time” so they’re going to be increasing capital spending to deal with the new policies.
Jones admits that he is “very concerned about the gate checked bags” taking time during the boarding process and slowing down the operation.
The airline is trying to reduce the amount of time planes are on the ground. They only make money when planes are in the air. But this is going to hurt on-time performance and their ability to schedule planes as efficiently as they do today.
Southwest doesn’t have as many oversized bins as other airlines (though he says 737-800 and MAX 8 planes should have bigger bins by the end of 2026). As passengers try to bring more bags on board to avoid the fees, boarding is going to take longer. Gate checking bags take longer still. And there’s going to be a worse customer experience with bags taken away from them.
Jones admits that he is “very concerned about the gate checked bags” taking time during the boarding process and slowing down the operation.
The airline is trying to reduce the amount of time planes are on the ground. They only make money when planes are in the air. But this is going to hurt on-time performance and their ability to schedule planes as efficiently as they do today.
Southwest doesn’t have as many oversized bins as other airlines (though he says 737-800 and MAX 8 planes should have bigger bins by the end of 2026). As passengers try to bring more bags on board to avoid the fees, boarding is going to take longer. Gate checking bags take longer still. And there’s going to be a worse customer experience with bags taken away from them.
Jones admits that he is “very concerned about the gate checked bags” taking time during the boarding process and slowing down the operation.
The airline is trying to reduce the amount of time planes are on the ground. They only make money when planes are in the air. But this is going to hurt on-time performance and their ability to schedule planes as efficiently as they do today.
Southwest doesn’t have as many oversized bins as other airlines (though he says 737-800 and MAX 8 planes should have bigger bins by the end of 2026). As passengers try to bring more bags on board to avoid the fees, boarding is going to take longer. Gate checking bags take longer still. And there’s going to be a worse customer experience with bags taken away from them.
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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 »
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Of course it will cause delays, chaos and security incidents at gates.
This still occurs with airlines that have been charging bags fees since 2008.
Stupid is what stupid does….
Southwest made a monstrous error that will, ultimately, destroy their company. I predict that within six months, a bit more, a bit less, that Southwest will be “acquired” and will disappear.
Easiest way to fix the baggage problem is to give pax who dont have a carry on , to get a free checked bag
Carrot works better than stick
Now that it’s been definitively confirmed that the Elliott Management guys are in fact the dumbest guys in the room, when does Southwest get its airline back ?
This could be a real disaster. Customers do not know or understand that all checked bags need to be done 45 minutes before departure or the luggage will not get on the flight. How many check in agents will need to be added?
the value of Elliott shares is gonna tank which will be sweet revenge
As a longtime SW customer who flys 3 to 6 times a year. I am looking forward to the assigned seating. Just last weekI flew from Seattle to HI via Oakland the pre-board wheel on – walk off was appalling each leg of the plane change in this flight. Oakland to HI had 9 wheelchairs with extended family’s totaling 30 people pre-boarding before the A group even started. I say ENOUGH. My SW priority credit card will get me 1 each free checked bag for the wife and I. let’s see how the assigned seating shapes up. Those wheel on – walk off pre-boarders will no longer have an advantage of first choice seats as they will be assigned. Please keep the A- C boarding groups for orderly boarding and limit the wheel on assisted to + one person each.
Please add a loud buzzer that goes off with an announcement. “STEP ASIDE UNTIL YOUR BOARDING POSITION IS CALLED.”
Thus calling out those who frequently take an out of turn attempt to board .
SW just needs carry on baggage sizers everywhere. If the carry on doesn’t fit, it get’s checked in. Also charge extra if you have to check in a luggage at the gate.
Author Unknown …but a very good point!
So maybe raise a glass to what Herb Kelleher accomplished, but let’s not get too teary-eyed about the old Southwest. If the company were attracting enough passengers at high enough fares to earn robust profits, it wouldn’t be attracting the attention of activist investors.
This is a simple business proposition. If you can’t soar with the hawks, soon enough you’re going to be flying with the vultures
Picard
Herb K. is rolling over in his grave. The unique airline he created is dying a slow painful death. I have been a LUV shareholder for decades and a regular customer for several years. I switched from AA because they were consistently late, and nickeled and dimed me to death even though I am a million miler and hold “status”. I might as well go back to AA now.
I never liked Southwest and happy to see them go out of business. I’ve seen these consulting companies destroy value at lots of companies. It won’t change. Wonder how many are writing books
Elliott doesn’t have shares. It invests its own money, money it manages. Latest report is it has $2BILLION of LUV stock, Southwest Airlines (LUV), Elliott has sold -2% of what it originally held, LUV has outstanding 60M shares, valued as of 12/31/24 at $33.62 per.
Latest news: it’s now making a run at Shell Oil stock, which I thought was already out of business, betting it’ll go down.
Just shoot yourself in the foot and be over with it.
It should be 1st bag free 2nd and 3rd bags are charged.
Duh! In other news, Southwest should warn us that water is wet.
They’re going to need to change the LUV symbol to HATE
What a mess.
There will be many altercations on board over luggage space which will cause flights being delayed. These new policies are never going to work for SWA. Revenue will suck!
Who let this clown out of his cage. Another look into the mind set of those running WN now. Doom and gloom from him and others foolishly peddling the quick turnaround nonsense that went out the door decades ago.
En$hittification…
The changes at southwest are designed to drive away current passengers in the mistaken belief they can be replaced with more affluent passengers.
If successful, that would raise the M&A value. But history is littered with companies that tried to move “upscale” and failed.
As a person who lived in Dallas for 20 years and use to revere SWA, sadly the airline has been going downhill since Herb died. Read his book, Nuts, and used to fly SWA weekly. But the LUV has long been gone. RIP
This, from an airline that already has a difficult time getting planes off the ground on time.
Dear Southwest: It was fun while it lasted, but it is clear the luv is gone. I have just used the last of my loyalty points, and its doubtful we will meet again.
Your new management looks to make you into a Delta, but I think you’re going to end up an Eastern.
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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 »
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