Is Southwest Winning on Bag Fees?

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Posted by Andrew Compart

As I mentioned in this earlier column, in which I warned that carriers should not get complacent about the impact of their fees, Southwest has taken a beating over the past year or so from Wall Street stock analysts who could not understand why Southwest would not join other carriers in charging for the first and second checked bag. That's because those carriers were reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from their checked bag fees, while Southwest was making a less tangible argument: that it was winning or would win new customers by not charging the fees.

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Very interesting article. When I fly in and out of Denver, if I have time, I will go and walk United's concourse B before flying out on Southwest. What I observe is a lot fewer customers on concourse B (United's) than on concouse C (Southwest's). I will also walk by the baggage claim areas and Southwest's is crowded whereas United's is not. While this is not a scientific comparison, at least to me it shows that those flying with bags are figuring it out and flying where "bags fly free." I was a fan of Southwest and no change fees long before anybody invented bags fees. Bags fly free, for me, is just an added reason to fly Southwest. Try it on any route -- pull up Southwest's web site and United or other legacy carrier's web site and then price compare. I often find, for flights 14+ days out, that some UA flights are the same price as SWA flights on the base fare, but then of course you have to add bag fees. Other times, UA flights will be higher and then you have to add bag fees on top of that! And, you know you are going to get a lot better service on SWA than you are going to get on a legacy carrier. At least for me, 99 times out of 100, SWA is clearly the better choice. Only some quirk about flight schedule, who's flying with me or meeting me, or going to a non-SWA city might be the outside chance that a legacy carrier might be the better choice. Its very rare that a legacy is the better choice.