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."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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%.
-
Air India crash highlights a new problem for Boeing: the DreamlinerIn the Spotlight The 787 had never been in a fatal crash before
-
Hundreds die in Air India crash with 1 survivorSpeed Read The London-bound Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed soon after takeoff
-
New York helicopter crash kills family, pilotspeed read A sightseeing helicopter crashed into the Hudson River, killing a family of Spanish tourists
-
US jet fuel tanker, cargo ship collide off UK coastSpeed Read A cargo vessel carrying a toxic chemical collides with a US-military chartered oil tanker in the North Sea
-
Delta flight lands upside-down in Toronto, no deathsspeed read At least 18 people were injured in a flight that landed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport
-
Passenger jet, Blackhawk helicopter collide in DCSpeed Read An American Airlines flight with 64 people aboard collided with an Army helicopter, and no survivors have been found
-
Washington DC plane crash: how did mid-air collision happen?Today's Big Question Experts struggle to explain how sophisticated airspace control system failed to prevent deadly disaster
-
New York rolls out vehicle toll in ManhattanSpeed Read In an effort to reduce traffic gridlock, vehicles will automatically be charged a toll to drive below 60th Street
