Southwest joins rival airlines on paid baggage

What happened

Southwest Airlines said Tuesday it will start charging most passengers for checked baggage, ending a longtime free-luggage policy that the company had touted as an important differentiator as recently as last fall. The new policy, which follows other quirks recently discarded by the idiosyncratic airline, applies to flights booked starting May 28.

Who said what

Southwest has "struggled recently and is under pressure from activist investors," The Associated Press said, and the budget airline is "betting that the added bag fees will outweigh the loss of business from travelers who look closely at the costs on top of ticket prices." Southwest is "playing a dangerous game," Thrifty Traveler executive editor Kyle Potter said to The Washington Post, lamenting "the end of an era" and of "maybe the single most popular policy in the entire U.S. airline industry."

Passengers loved Southwest's "quirks and perks," including its "'Hunger Games' open seating policy," never-expiring flight credits, "flight attendant jokes" and "especially the free checked bags," Hannah Sampson said at the Post. Now "much of that is about to be gone." That's "what happens when a hedge fund takes over," aviation journalist Benét J. Wilson said to the outlet. "They dismantle everything that made Southwest special. And it's going to be just another legacy airline."

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What next?

Southwest was one of several airlines that "flashed an early-warning signal" Tuesday, "suggesting that consumers and businesses were starting to get nervous amid wider economic and political uncertainty," The New York Times said. But while shares of United, American and Delta fell, Southwest's stock closed up more than 9%.