The end of an era is approaching at Southwest / Southworst

Last month, the semi-legacy airline announced it would end its famous open seating policy next year. 

Now, first, the seating isn't totally "open." You can pay Southwest to upgrade, if not to an assigned seat, at least to A-section boarding, first of all. Second, families with pre-teen kids not already in A section by how early they checked in automatically board between A and B so parents can keep together with their kids.

The biggie? Does this mean the "bags fly free" domino will drop next?

"Activist" (more vulture-like) investors, led by Elliott Investment Management, have been pushing for this.

If Southworst charged for a second checked bag but kept the first free, I could definitely in summer, possibly in cold weather, find a way to cram all my stuff in one bag. If it started charging for even a first bag?

Well, then, I start looking at Travelocity as well as Southworst's website.

(Update, Sept. 5: Some sort of other shoe may be a lot closer to dropping.)

In a recent Facebook discussion with my brother, he said that "bags fly free" just covered up high prices and that for him, from St. Louis, American was actually cheaper to Orlando. (He didn't say how many, if any, checked bags he had.)

Well, to do a comp to my recent vacation trip, I checked American's prices from DFW to Sacramento a month out from now.

Prices themselves? Even. 

But, American wants $40 one-way for the first checked back and Travelocity didn't even list a price for a second.

So, as long as bags fly free, I fly Southworst — on-time problems and all.

It DOES have that, though. In the past three-plus years, I don't think I've had a single flight, and I know not a single summertime flight, with a delay of less than 15 minutes. This trip? 45-plus, both ways. I think it was crew on the return trip. I know it was outbound. The feds won't let you fly without a copilot.

It was funny, something related to that.

That outbound flight was July 19, the date the Crowdstrike update caused problems for other legacy airlines. (Not sure if anybody considers Southworst "legacy," but it is at least semi-legacy, per top of the piece.) A bunch of people at D/FW couldn't get rebooked on a Double A flight, weren't getting enough compensation of whatever, so hopped over to Love Field.

One of them said that he thought maybe Southworst used Linux and that's why they weren't hit.

I didn't tell him, knowing their history with their crappy crew scheduling software, that it was more likely their flight scheduling system was simply too old to accept the latest Crowdstrike upgrade.

Finally? Southworst PR? You ARE a "semi-legacy," at least. Fifty-plus years old.