An Open Letter to the Traitors Who Ruined Southwest Airlines

There are a few things I feel a profound, unyielding sense of loyalty to.

The Dallas Stars are one, my annual subscription to Texas Monthly is another, and Southwest Airlines was the third until today.

At its inception, Southwest Airlines represented everything good and right in the world. The flights were cheap, and if you were proactive about checking in 24 hours before your flight, a window seat was almost always guaranteed. I won’t say how many times a Southwest flight attendant has hit me with a wink and “forgotten” to charge me for a mimosa, but it’s more than a few. Talk about Southern hospitality 30,000 feet in the sky.

Today, though, all of that dies. I am cutting up my Southwest miles-earning credit card as we speak. I don’t want them because if I can’t fly to my destination with two free checked bags in tow in the seat I chose as a free-willed American, what is the point?

This morning, the Dallas-based airline announced it will end its beloved “two bags fly free” policy this summer. Free luggage will still be extended to members of the Rapid Rewards loyalty program’s upper tiers, anyone with a business class ticket, or those who hold the airline’s credit card, which was me until a few moments ago, snip. It’s the principle of the thing, class solidarity, whatever.

The last year has been death by a thousand private equity cuts for Southwest Airlines, ever since Elliott Investment Management bought a $1.9 billion stake in the company. Today’s announcement feels like a slash that could kill.

In the last year, the hedge fund investor has pressured the airline into a corner, aiming to increase profitability through $500 million in cost cuts. This is a fundamental misunderstanding, or disregarding, of why Southwest worked in the first place. Herb Kelleher, the airline’s founder, was no moron. He knew how to build a profitable product. However, the beauty of Southwest was the company’s conscious decision to walk away from policies that might increase profitability but harm the customer experience.

Does Southwest lose $9 every time a flight attendant gives me a free mimosa? Sure, but I haven’t flown any other airline domestically in years.

Elliott Investment Management has forced out longtime board members who championed the policies that made Southwest special, and earlier this year, mass layoffs hit the company for the first time in its history.

Last summer, the airline announced it would soon end its half-century-long tradition of democracy, aka, allowing customers to choose their own seats. And earlier this month, the airline announced an overnight devaluation of its once generous points-earning structure. Wanna Get Away fares now earn 67% fewer points per dollar than they did just weeks ago, and the sweeping change is retroactively impacting already-booked flights.

With all this in mind, it feels like Southwest Airlines' free baggage policy was the last good thing it had going for it, and now a bunch of finance bros who hate good things have taken that too from us.

Was Southwest perfect before all this? Of course not. The airline’s stock value had long lagged behind other airlines, inspiring Elliott Investment Management’s takeover. We can’t forget the 2022 holiday scheduling meltdown, which was so bad it has its own Wikipedia page. The airline took another hit during last year’s Boeing crisis because of its cost-saving decision to fly only Boeing 737s.

But I loved Southwest Airlines anyway because Southwest Airlines loved me. Now, like everything else good in this world, Southwest has been commandeered by capitalism, and we customers will be stuck paying more for the shell of what this company once was.

So if you catch me January 6th-ing the Elliott Management headquarters, mind your business. Or join in.

I want my airline back.