Fascinating write up on ULCC’s. It has been a few years since I was a regular flyer for business, but our choice in carrier was always price motivated. In those times several years ago, we flew Southwest as the least expensive option. First question is what does Southwest do to not qualify as a ULCC? Last question is their change in seating policy changing them to a more expensive middle of the road carrier? Open seating was initially scary but became a comfort- one less thing to pre-plan for. I would appreciate your thoughts. I vividly remember flying from Baltimore to Seattle with no meals- just a bag of peanuts… when the other carriers provided cross country lunch.
Yes, I have a friend who flys several times a week exclusively on Delta, and I have told him that we could save his company millions by having everyone fly Frontier. He was not exactly excited at this prospect and did not raise this idea to management. 😆
Basically, it groups Southwest with Alaska Airlines and JetBlue, in a category they call LCC (low cost carriers). In my experience- that is consistent with how they seem to price flights. Southwest and Alaska are usually similarly priced to American and United. For a long time, you could only search Southwest's flights directly on their website, which prevented people from doing comparison shopping. I think they were able to get by for a while like this, but once their routes hit the Google Flights database and everyone saw them side-by-side with the legacy carriers, they were no longer seen as ultra-low-cost.
Southwest has long been one of my favorite airlines, for their willingness to do things differently- such as open seating. Recently though, an activist investor (Elliot Management) has taken a few board seats through a large stock purchase, and plans to change their business model to return them to profitability. This is what has motivated many of the recent changes... and will result in many more. Southwest is actively cutting routes, looking into new partnerships, and adjusting their customer experience.
Many are skeptical that these changes will be a net-positive, but I think it's worth giving any new plans some time to shake out in the market. This subject could honestly take up an entire article, and may be a subject we focus on in the near future.
Again, thanks for always reading, and for the comments!
Impressive research and analysis. I was surprised to see the plummets in the graphs were just before 2020 - unless I'm looking at them wrong, or Americans were more aware of Covid before I was. Also, what a great joke at the end!!
Hmm, you're right... suspicious. I know the data is correct, but the chart labels may be a bit off-- I was using AI to help generate the charts. Should have stuck to plain old excel. Foiled again!
Also forgot to credit the original jokester- thank you for the contribution!
Fascinating write up on ULCC’s. It has been a few years since I was a regular flyer for business, but our choice in carrier was always price motivated. In those times several years ago, we flew Southwest as the least expensive option. First question is what does Southwest do to not qualify as a ULCC? Last question is their change in seating policy changing them to a more expensive middle of the road carrier? Open seating was initially scary but became a comfort- one less thing to pre-plan for. I would appreciate your thoughts. I vividly remember flying from Baltimore to Seattle with no meals- just a bag of peanuts… when the other carriers provided cross country lunch.
Thanks for reading, Chip!
Yes, I have a friend who flys several times a week exclusively on Delta, and I have told him that we could save his company millions by having everyone fly Frontier. He was not exactly excited at this prospect and did not raise this idea to management. 😆
I actually saw an interesting chart this morning - that I don't think I can post here - but here it is posted on X/Twitter: https://x.com/flightradar24/status/1840693571017736368
Basically, it groups Southwest with Alaska Airlines and JetBlue, in a category they call LCC (low cost carriers). In my experience- that is consistent with how they seem to price flights. Southwest and Alaska are usually similarly priced to American and United. For a long time, you could only search Southwest's flights directly on their website, which prevented people from doing comparison shopping. I think they were able to get by for a while like this, but once their routes hit the Google Flights database and everyone saw them side-by-side with the legacy carriers, they were no longer seen as ultra-low-cost.
Southwest has long been one of my favorite airlines, for their willingness to do things differently- such as open seating. Recently though, an activist investor (Elliot Management) has taken a few board seats through a large stock purchase, and plans to change their business model to return them to profitability. This is what has motivated many of the recent changes... and will result in many more. Southwest is actively cutting routes, looking into new partnerships, and adjusting their customer experience.
Many are skeptical that these changes will be a net-positive, but I think it's worth giving any new plans some time to shake out in the market. This subject could honestly take up an entire article, and may be a subject we focus on in the near future.
Again, thanks for always reading, and for the comments!
Impressive research and analysis. I was surprised to see the plummets in the graphs were just before 2020 - unless I'm looking at them wrong, or Americans were more aware of Covid before I was. Also, what a great joke at the end!!
Hmm, you're right... suspicious. I know the data is correct, but the chart labels may be a bit off-- I was using AI to help generate the charts. Should have stuck to plain old excel. Foiled again!
Also forgot to credit the original jokester- thank you for the contribution!
It’s still crazy to see what is very clearly the Covid plunge. And for anyone else reading this, the original jokester = Jess Day :D