RIP Southwest: Airline Celebrates Tripling Profits As Wall Street Kills Open Seating and “Bags Fly Free” for Delta-fication

Here lies Southwest Airlines, a “company with heart” ruined by Wall Street vulturism and enshittification — 1966-2026.

Over the last two years, since an “activist” “investor” descended on the Texas-based carrier, it’s made a lot of big (bad) decisions — many great for business, but most brutal for flyers.

Chief among them was eliminating free bags, reward miles on cheaper fares, and haphazardly, confusingly investing in “premium” airport lounges despite only offering economy-class seating.

However, this week arguably marked the completion of the airline’s long arc towards being like everybody else.

Southworst: For the last year, Southwest has been reconfiguring its fleet, stealing precious inches of seat pitch and introducing new “Extra Legroom” seating as part of its reinvention plan. The upshot is that the airline would eventually do away with open seating, eliciting mixed reactions. This week, it finally did that — flying its final flight under this one-time defining policy. With that, Southwest has finally accepted mundanity — the shift from unique option to run-of-the-mill United/Delta wannabe is now complete.

• Going forward, Southwest will offer three seat classes: a 34” Extra Legroom seat, a 31” Preferred seat (whatever that means), and a 31” Standard seat.
• You’ll pay extra for seats unless you’re a Southwest A List or A List Preferred customer (free selection at booking) or a holder of Southwest Chase credit cards (free selection 48 hours prior to departure).

You Will Overpay (And Fly In Squalor)

These changes are being pitched as “getting with the times,” sold by begrudging management as what “flyers really want.” Arguably, it’s just a gross pursuit of luxury travel spend, minus a clear strategy. After half a century, Southwest’s diehards get less — and it’s not obvious how that wins over new customers.

• If anything, this drags Southwest down to parity with more stratified, multi-class carriers like Delta or United — their legroom sucks; the only difference is you can pay for a better seat and hop onmainline international flights.
• At the end of the day, Southwest’s transformation from “low cost carrier” into an expensive, meh product? Laughable — smaller seats, paying for checked bags, no real upgrade in the experience… for basically the same price as before.

But think of the shareholders! Days after announcing the end of open seating, Southwest said it expects profits to more than triple this year — congrats to the shareholders. I’m sure they’ll toast to it in Delta One or United Polaris. (God knows the people who did this are never flying Southwest… lmao.)