14 ms·

Pure Genius: Southwest Airlines Baggage Strategy

157 points by cwan 17y ago

tron_carter 17y ago
I've always wondered why Southwest or some Airline startup couldn't take a 737, add second deck of passenger seating in the lower half of plane, where luggage goes, add HVAC, exits, etc. then make everyone carry on 1 luggage for commuter / weekend flights.
- lotharbot 17y ago
  I take it you've never been in the lower "half" of a 737. Passengers actually sit with their bellies about at the midpoint of the jet. The area below the floor is about the same size as the overhead bins. It's really not suitable for anything other than bags.
  - tron_carter 17y ago
    Thanks for the aerospace insight. I'm sure there are other issues with the half-baked idea as well.
    - kljhgfvgbn 17y ago
      There are a couple of larger models where the crew rest area is in the cargo hold. It's a removable unit the full width of the plane - equal to two of those 5sided luggage pods and is very comfortable. Airlines looked at using them as sleeping berths for first class passengers but it's difficult to meet the escape time requirements. Although you chances of exiting the aircraft in 90secs if it crashed in the middle of the Atlantic in the middle of the night are pretty small - the FAA has to pretend it's possible.
      - jrockway 17y ago
        Although you chances of exiting the aircraft in 90secs if it crashed in the middle of the Atlantic in the middle of the night are pretty small - the FAA has to pretend it's possible. What? This requirement is actually quite important. Take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358 I followed a few links and skimmed the full report, but couldn't find the time it took to evacuate. But it was under 90 seconds, even with several exits not usable. Since the aircraft was already burning before it came to a stop, any time savings was critical to ensuring survival. And everyone did survive. So I think this regulation is important. If there was just one exit, and it was blocked, there would have been 300 people dead in a fire instead of 0.
        kljhgfvgbn 17y ago
        Yes evacuation on take off and landing is very important. However the regs don't differentiate about the stage of the flight, even if you were only allowed to use the bed during cruise, at 30,000 over the ocean - the same time applies.
        jrockway 17y ago
        Dunno, this has also been useful. Imagine a scenario like UAL811: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811 You are downstairs in your bed, when the cabin depressurizes and you can't move around. The depressurization also damages the flight controls, making a clean landing unlikely. The unclean landing occurs, the plane catches on fire, and you burn to death in your bed because "regulations are silly".
joez 17y ago
I don't understand the point on hedging. Both turning an aircraft around faster and a successful hedge on jet fuel result in higher profit. But not sure how the two are related? Regarding hedging, Southwest gets too much publicity for being so slick to hedge fuel before oil prices shot through the roof years ago. Hedging is not part of its core competency, or at least it isn't unless they are pioneering a new business model of providing a service and then leveraging for profit on the futures markets. As in, they could have lost money on the hedge as well. Unless Southwest could use their understanding of the airline industry to predict a huge rise in oil demand, hedges should only be used as a tool to smooth out expense lines. Here's an oversimplified example to illustrate: A gas station owner hedges oil futures. Might be smart because he isn't going to change his prices every day to reflect the spot price and customers appreciate it. He has a better forecast on his profitability because his expenditures are smoother. But it isn't really his core competency to predict oil prices. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_hedging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_hedging TL;DR: Hedging can really help your profits but you don't read about the companies that lost money on hedges. Maybe Southwest was able to build a team of brilliant market researchers but I'm not sure it's a good idea for every company to buy futures.
- mhb 17y ago
  The hedging point is just another of the unsubstantiated assertions he makes. As you say, there's not even any reason to mention hedging. If they use less fuel they make more money independent of their mechanism for better knowledge of their future price of fuel.
mhb 17y ago
Maybe it's marketing genius, but I don't understand some of his reasoning. Obviously all the airlines don't want anyone carrying bags on the plane. Why is having a consistent load factor an enabler for Southwest to fly checked bags for free? Why does it matter that the bags are being moved between the same types of aircraft? You could equally well imagine the argument that it makes sense to use an "agile" strategy in which aircraft with different load factors are deployed based on the type of travel expected. I'm sure having only one aircraft and picking routes for which that aircraft is suitable has tons of benefits for Southwest, but his blog doesn't explain why that is an enabler for the free checked bag policy (other than creating efficiencies which generate enough profit to offer any perks). Would it be "marketing genius" to offer free meals on planes?
- lmkg 17y ago
  Having a more varied fleet would be vastly more expensive for Southwest to maintain, because they've bet heavily on having fleet consistency. Their ability to handle baggage easily is only one aspect of this, and probably not the biggest one (I would guess spare parts is bigger). Other airlines that already have a varied fleet might be able to pull it off, but there's still large logistical issues. All of Southwest's planes are interchangeable. They only need one collection of spare parts for maintenance. If one plane needs to be taken out of service, it can be replaced by any other plane in the network. They only need one type of spare plane at each airport to cover contingencies. Their pilots and crew can all be re-assigned with negligible attention to specialization, certification, or even number of crew per flight. Any place that has a SWA connection will always have the correct capabilities for any flight that goes to or through that airport. They can make logistic changes to their network without considering compatibility issues. Compare this to an airline that dynamically re-adjusts the type of plane. You generally don't know baggage capacity until shortly before takeoff (unless you want to make everyone declare far in advance, which is itself a burden on travelers). This means that you need to either keep a bunch of spare planes of varying types at each airport, or fly empty planes around to meet demand, both of which are expensive. You also have to deal with, say, Denver having more 737s going in than out, and extra 757s piling up in Maui. In order to correct that you need to either fly empty planes, or use the wrong type of plane on some flights, probably over-large ones. Basically, airplanes are too big and expensive to realistically adopt "agility" as a business strategy. The overhead for preparing for/dealing with statistical anomalies piles up fast.
JunkDNA 17y ago
This article is pretty interesting. One point he makes is one that I have long wondered about: why on earth do airlines not treat baggage the same way UPS and FedEx treat packages? Going one step further, I'm not sure what the logistics would be, but I wonder if the airlines could sub-contract baggage to people like UPS and FedEx. One of my big fears traveling is that my bag is going to disappear for days on end in the system. If UPS was willing to guarantee hotel delivery for my stuff by 8PM on my arrival day, I might take it, even if I had to pay.
- wallflower 17y ago
  FedEx and UPS have a vastly simpler model for package distribution compared to airline baggage distribution. Everything goes to a central hub and is consolidated and sent out directly to the regional distrbution center. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke-hub_distribution_paradigm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke-hub_distribution_paradigm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldport_(UPS_air_hub) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldport_(UPS_air_hub)
  - jrockway 17y ago
    So do passengers, except on Southwest. If you fly American, you will become very familiar with ORD or DFW. If you fly Delta, you will become very familiar with ATL. If you fly USAir, you will become very familiar with PHX or CLT. Etc. Even Southwest tends to try to funnel passengers through focus cities like MDW, but their network is largely point-to-point. If hub-and-spoke is what would make baggage distribution efficient, WN should be the least efficient.
    - wallflower 17y ago
      Yes, I was fascinated when I learned that they have to fly all the planes back at the end of the day to the ORD hub so they can be ready for the next day of flights. Which means when planes are delayed and they can't make it back to the mother hub - it puts strain on their system.
      - 17y ago
rmc 17y ago
Sound like how Ryanair (a Europe airline) work. They are one of the largest airlines in the world. They charge €20 per checked in bag. And since you can't check in online with a bag, you need to pay €20 to use a check in desk. When a flight is advertised for €15, all these extra charges all add up. Of course most people think it's just Ryanair being mean and will complain about how they "were stung for extra charges". However, despite people's complaints, they are by far the lowest prices, and people fly with them. I think Ryanair based a lot of their idea on southwest airlines in the USA.
- kljhgfvgbn 17y ago
  Almost, easyjet and then Ryanair copied the single type, low prices and short routes idea of SouthWestern. What they forgot to copy was the honest price, no fees policy and the extremely helpful and friendly staff of SWA and the Canadian equivalent Westjet. What Ryan did was take the SWA idea of being profitable and added the fee structure scams of every major airline and the customer management skills of a Soviet era railway.
  - seanos 17y ago
    Actually I would say that Ryanair is the opposite model. They want to discourage people from checking in baggage, hence the fees. Staffing check-in desks and paying for baggage handling is a cost to the airline and increases turn around times as bags have to me moved on and off the aircraft. The difference is that Ryanair passengers are not, generally, making connecting flights at their destination at least not with Ryanair. They are flying straight to their destination, removing the advantages of checked baggage that exist for Southwest. As for the fees, that is a feature not a bug. It means that people who want to fly as cheaply as possible can (no frills) and those who want the extras such as checked baggage pay. With a no fee structure, essentially the people who don't check baggage, check in online instead of at a desk, don't care where they sit (and speed up boarding times) etc are subsidising those that use those extras.
    - imajes 17y ago
      Enjoy paying for your bathroom break. Have you considered what ryanair do with the hold space that they don't fill up with pax baggage?
dhyasama 17y ago
Transferring bags between identical planes will decrease risk but it won't eliminate it. Unless the same people are transferring (and hence the same bags) then the number and size of bags is going to change. Presumably people are transferring to the new plane from many different flights, flights have varying numbers of people, people have varying numbers of bags, and bags vary in size. For example, a few flights into Miami may be only 1/4 full of people but they are 1/2 full of bags because the Miami flyers tend to carry large gear such as golf clubs and scuba gear. If you transfer those people onto a flight to the Bahamas, along with a few folks from other flights, then you might run into a problem.
rokhayakebe 17y ago
So passengers spend between 30-40 minutes loading and unloading their carry on luggage. By checking in those bags the airline saves time, but what about the resources (employees) it would take to check those bags and to load/unload them from the airplane.
- mcantor 17y ago
  30-40 minutes? What kind of passengers have you been travelling next to? I travel exclusively with carry-ons--I haven't checked baggage in over 5 years--and it has never taken me more than 90 seconds total to get one carry-on into the overhead compartment, stuff my backpack under the seat in front of me, and sit down.
  - justinsb 17y ago
    90 seconds * 200 passengers = 300 minutes.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      Parallel, not serial. Customers at the front slow the others down as they board and stow luggage, but not by much.
      - daniel02216 17y ago
        Actually, it is surprisingly serial, especially for getting off the plane. I've sat in the back of an airplane for 30 minutes while one person at a time gets their stuff out of the overhead bins, because you can't pull your suitcase down until there's room on the floor for it. If you tried, you'd whack someone on the head who got out and stood in the aisle.
  - jeffmould 17y ago
    The 30-40 minutes is not per passenger, but how much time is wasted overall in the loading/unloading process with carry-on baggage. The theory is that if no passengers had carry-on baggage the load/unload times would be reduced to near zero and turnaround times on the ground would be minimal thus reducing cost. For each person with a carry-on that turnaround time increases thus costing the airline money. Next time you fly time how long it takes for the first person to get on the plane until the last person boards and vice-versa. That time should total to around 30-40 minutes.
F_J_H 17y ago
Interesting - yes. Informative - yes. "Genius" though?
jrockway 17y ago
It's my understanding that the majors make a ton of revenue off the checked-bag fees. That's why they do it; even though it encourages people to carry-on, and that decreases plane utilization (longer turn times), it still makes them money. (It also encourages airline loyalty. Fly 25k miles on one of the legacies, and now checked bags are free. I stick with the legacies because of the great loyalty programs and the ability to use the same airline domestically and internationally. It is also nice to have an assigned seat.)
vl 17y ago
I wonder for a long time now what Southwest is going to do when they will have to replace 737s finally. At some time at the future they will have depart from old and uneconomical (by future standards) design and at this instant they would have second incompatible plane operating in parallel and dramatic cost increase.
Everest 17y ago
More consumers are using kayak, bing/travel, and other flight aggregators. Airlines are competing on the price of tickets so they tack on extra charges at checkout. Southwest doesn't play in the aggregation game so they can factor the price of storing luggage into the price of the ticket. Southwest doesn't want to commoditize their product by making their flights available to aggregators and part of that is offering a differentiated consumer experience. This isn't the point that the author makes but could explain Southwest's strategy with luggage....
jim-greer 17y ago
Interesting, but does he really check baggage when flying for business? Waiting for the bags takes a lot longer than waiting for people to get their bags off the plane. Checking might speed turnaround for Southwest, but it slows things down for passengers. The only time I check bags is when flying with my wife and daughter...

157 points by cwan 17y ago

I've always wondered why Southwest or some Airline startup couldn't take a 737, add second deck of passenger seating in the lower half of plane, where luggage goes, add HVAC, exits, etc. then make everyone carry on 1 luggage for commuter / weekend flights.

lotharbot 17y ago
I take it you've never been in the lower "half" of a 737. Passengers actually sit with their bellies about at the midpoint of the jet. The area below the floor is about the same size as the overhead bins. It's really not suitable for anything other than bags.
- tron_carter 17y ago
  Thanks for the aerospace insight. I'm sure there are other issues with the half-baked idea as well.
  - kljhgfvgbn 17y ago
    There are a couple of larger models where the crew rest area is in the cargo hold. It's a removable unit the full width of the plane - equal to two of those 5sided luggage pods and is very comfortable. Airlines looked at using them as sleeping berths for first class passengers but it's difficult to meet the escape time requirements. Although you chances of exiting the aircraft in 90secs if it crashed in the middle of the Atlantic in the middle of the night are pretty small - the FAA has to pretend it's possible.
    - jrockway 17y ago
      Although you chances of exiting the aircraft in 90secs if it crashed in the middle of the Atlantic in the middle of the night are pretty small - the FAA has to pretend it's possible. What? This requirement is actually quite important. Take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358 I followed a few links and skimmed the full report, but couldn't find the time it took to evacuate. But it was under 90 seconds, even with several exits not usable. Since the aircraft was already burning before it came to a stop, any time savings was critical to ensuring survival. And everyone did survive. So I think this regulation is important. If there was just one exit, and it was blocked, there would have been 300 people dead in a fire instead of 0.
      - kljhgfvgbn 17y ago
        Yes evacuation on take off and landing is very important. However the regs don't differentiate about the stage of the flight, even if you were only allowed to use the bed during cruise, at 30,000 over the ocean - the same time applies.
        jrockway 17y ago
        Dunno, this has also been useful. Imagine a scenario like UAL811: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811 You are downstairs in your bed, when the cabin depressurizes and you can't move around. The depressurization also damages the flight controls, making a clean landing unlikely. The unclean landing occurs, the plane catches on fire, and you burn to death in your bed because "regulations are silly".

joez 17y ago

I don't understand the point on hedging. Both turning an aircraft around faster and a successful hedge on jet fuel result in higher profit. But not sure how the two are related? Regarding hedging, Southwest gets too much publicity for being so slick to hedge fuel before oil prices shot through the roof years ago. Hedging is not part of its core competency, or at least it isn't unless they are pioneering a new business model of providing a service and then leveraging for profit on the futures markets. As in, they could have lost money on the hedge as well. Unless Southwest could use their understanding of the airline industry to predict a huge rise in oil demand, hedges should only be used as a tool to smooth out expense lines. Here's an oversimplified example to illustrate: A gas station owner hedges oil futures. Might be smart because he isn't going to change his prices every day to reflect the spot price and customers appreciate it. He has a better forecast on his profitability because his expenditures are smoother. But it isn't really his core competency to predict oil prices. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_hedging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_hedging TL;DR: Hedging can really help your profits but you don't read about the companies that lost money on hedges. Maybe Southwest was able to build a team of brilliant market researchers but I'm not sure it's a good idea for every company to buy futures.

mhb 17y ago
The hedging point is just another of the unsubstantiated assertions he makes. As you say, there's not even any reason to mention hedging. If they use less fuel they make more money independent of their mechanism for better knowledge of their future price of fuel.

mhb 17y ago

Maybe it's marketing genius, but I don't understand some of his reasoning. Obviously all the airlines don't want anyone carrying bags on the plane. Why is having a consistent load factor an enabler for Southwest to fly checked bags for free? Why does it matter that the bags are being moved between the same types of aircraft? You could equally well imagine the argument that it makes sense to use an "agile" strategy in which aircraft with different load factors are deployed based on the type of travel expected. I'm sure having only one aircraft and picking routes for which that aircraft is suitable has tons of benefits for Southwest, but his blog doesn't explain why that is an enabler for the free checked bag policy (other than creating efficiencies which generate enough profit to offer any perks). Would it be "marketing genius" to offer free meals on planes?

lmkg 17y ago
Having a more varied fleet would be vastly more expensive for Southwest to maintain, because they've bet heavily on having fleet consistency. Their ability to handle baggage easily is only one aspect of this, and probably not the biggest one (I would guess spare parts is bigger). Other airlines that already have a varied fleet might be able to pull it off, but there's still large logistical issues. All of Southwest's planes are interchangeable. They only need one collection of spare parts for maintenance. If one plane needs to be taken out of service, it can be replaced by any other plane in the network. They only need one type of spare plane at each airport to cover contingencies. Their pilots and crew can all be re-assigned with negligible attention to specialization, certification, or even number of crew per flight. Any place that has a SWA connection will always have the correct capabilities for any flight that goes to or through that airport. They can make logistic changes to their network without considering compatibility issues. Compare this to an airline that dynamically re-adjusts the type of plane. You generally don't know baggage capacity until shortly before takeoff (unless you want to make everyone declare far in advance, which is itself a burden on travelers). This means that you need to either keep a bunch of spare planes of varying types at each airport, or fly empty planes around to meet demand, both of which are expensive. You also have to deal with, say, Denver having more 737s going in than out, and extra 757s piling up in Maui. In order to correct that you need to either fly empty planes, or use the wrong type of plane on some flights, probably over-large ones. Basically, airplanes are too big and expensive to realistically adopt "agility" as a business strategy. The overhead for preparing for/dealing with statistical anomalies piles up fast.

JunkDNA 17y ago

This article is pretty interesting. One point he makes is one that I have long wondered about: why on earth do airlines not treat baggage the same way UPS and FedEx treat packages? Going one step further, I'm not sure what the logistics would be, but I wonder if the airlines could sub-contract baggage to people like UPS and FedEx. One of my big fears traveling is that my bag is going to disappear for days on end in the system. If UPS was willing to guarantee hotel delivery for my stuff by 8PM on my arrival day, I might take it, even if I had to pay.

wallflower 17y ago
FedEx and UPS have a vastly simpler model for package distribution compared to airline baggage distribution. Everything goes to a central hub and is consolidated and sent out directly to the regional distrbution center. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke-hub_distribution_paradigm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke-hub_distribution_paradigm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldport_(UPS_air_hub) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldport_(UPS_air_hub)
- jrockway 17y ago
  So do passengers, except on Southwest. If you fly American, you will become very familiar with ORD or DFW. If you fly Delta, you will become very familiar with ATL. If you fly USAir, you will become very familiar with PHX or CLT. Etc. Even Southwest tends to try to funnel passengers through focus cities like MDW, but their network is largely point-to-point. If hub-and-spoke is what would make baggage distribution efficient, WN should be the least efficient.
  - wallflower 17y ago
    Yes, I was fascinated when I learned that they have to fly all the planes back at the end of the day to the ORD hub so they can be ready for the next day of flights. Which means when planes are delayed and they can't make it back to the mother hub - it puts strain on their system.
    - 17y ago

rmc 17y ago

Sound like how Ryanair (a Europe airline) work. They are one of the largest airlines in the world. They charge €20 per checked in bag. And since you can't check in online with a bag, you need to pay €20 to use a check in desk. When a flight is advertised for €15, all these extra charges all add up. Of course most people think it's just Ryanair being mean and will complain about how they "were stung for extra charges". However, despite people's complaints, they are by far the lowest prices, and people fly with them. I think Ryanair based a lot of their idea on southwest airlines in the USA.

kljhgfvgbn 17y ago
Almost, easyjet and then Ryanair copied the single type, low prices and short routes idea of SouthWestern. What they forgot to copy was the honest price, no fees policy and the extremely helpful and friendly staff of SWA and the Canadian equivalent Westjet. What Ryan did was take the SWA idea of being profitable and added the fee structure scams of every major airline and the customer management skills of a Soviet era railway.
- seanos 17y ago
  Actually I would say that Ryanair is the opposite model. They want to discourage people from checking in baggage, hence the fees. Staffing check-in desks and paying for baggage handling is a cost to the airline and increases turn around times as bags have to me moved on and off the aircraft. The difference is that Ryanair passengers are not, generally, making connecting flights at their destination at least not with Ryanair. They are flying straight to their destination, removing the advantages of checked baggage that exist for Southwest. As for the fees, that is a feature not a bug. It means that people who want to fly as cheaply as possible can (no frills) and those who want the extras such as checked baggage pay. With a no fee structure, essentially the people who don't check baggage, check in online instead of at a desk, don't care where they sit (and speed up boarding times) etc are subsidising those that use those extras.
  - imajes 17y ago
    Enjoy paying for your bathroom break. Have you considered what ryanair do with the hold space that they don't fill up with pax baggage?

dhyasama 17y ago

Transferring bags between identical planes will decrease risk but it won't eliminate it. Unless the same people are transferring (and hence the same bags) then the number and size of bags is going to change. Presumably people are transferring to the new plane from many different flights, flights have varying numbers of people, people have varying numbers of bags, and bags vary in size. For example, a few flights into Miami may be only 1/4 full of people but they are 1/2 full of bags because the Miami flyers tend to carry large gear such as golf clubs and scuba gear. If you transfer those people onto a flight to the Bahamas, along with a few folks from other flights, then you might run into a problem.

rokhayakebe 17y ago

So passengers spend between 30-40 minutes loading and unloading their carry on luggage. By checking in those bags the airline saves time, but what about the resources (employees) it would take to check those bags and to load/unload them from the airplane.

mcantor 17y ago
30-40 minutes? What kind of passengers have you been travelling next to? I travel exclusively with carry-ons--I haven't checked baggage in over 5 years--and it has never taken me more than 90 seconds total to get one carry-on into the overhead compartment, stuff my backpack under the seat in front of me, and sit down.
- justinsb 17y ago
  90 seconds * 200 passengers = 300 minutes.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Parallel, not serial. Customers at the front slow the others down as they board and stow luggage, but not by much.
    - daniel02216 17y ago
      Actually, it is surprisingly serial, especially for getting off the plane. I've sat in the back of an airplane for 30 minutes while one person at a time gets their stuff out of the overhead bins, because you can't pull your suitcase down until there's room on the floor for it. If you tried, you'd whack someone on the head who got out and stood in the aisle.
- jeffmould 17y ago
  The 30-40 minutes is not per passenger, but how much time is wasted overall in the loading/unloading process with carry-on baggage. The theory is that if no passengers had carry-on baggage the load/unload times would be reduced to near zero and turnaround times on the ground would be minimal thus reducing cost. For each person with a carry-on that turnaround time increases thus costing the airline money. Next time you fly time how long it takes for the first person to get on the plane until the last person boards and vice-versa. That time should total to around 30-40 minutes.

F_J_H 17y ago

Interesting - yes. Informative - yes. "Genius" though?

jrockway 17y ago

It's my understanding that the majors make a ton of revenue off the checked-bag fees. That's why they do it; even though it encourages people to carry-on, and that decreases plane utilization (longer turn times), it still makes them money. (It also encourages airline loyalty. Fly 25k miles on one of the legacies, and now checked bags are free. I stick with the legacies because of the great loyalty programs and the ability to use the same airline domestically and internationally. It is also nice to have an assigned seat.)

vl 17y ago

I wonder for a long time now what Southwest is going to do when they will have to replace 737s finally. At some time at the future they will have depart from old and uneconomical (by future standards) design and at this instant they would have second incompatible plane operating in parallel and dramatic cost increase.

Everest 17y ago

More consumers are using kayak, bing/travel, and other flight aggregators. Airlines are competing on the price of tickets so they tack on extra charges at checkout. Southwest doesn't play in the aggregation game so they can factor the price of storing luggage into the price of the ticket. Southwest doesn't want to commoditize their product by making their flights available to aggregators and part of that is offering a differentiated consumer experience. This isn't the point that the author makes but could explain Southwest's strategy with luggage....

jim-greer 17y ago

Interesting, but does he really check baggage when flying for business? Waiting for the bags takes a lot longer than waiting for people to get their bags off the plane. Checking might speed turnaround for Southwest, but it slows things down for passengers. The only time I check bags is when flying with my wife and daughter...