Southwest hits more turbulence

First, it has followed American and others in cutting flights for the second half of this year. All airlines are facing possible drops in travel domestically due to recession fears. As Southwest is a US-only airline, outside of its few Caribbean trips, it's not affected by a potential massive drop in European, Asian and Latin American travel to the US.

Plus, the ending of its bags fly free, on flights booked after May 28, as it tries to pivot to theoretically more profitable business travel — even though an internal analysis said last year it would lose money — isn't helping.

Related to that? The airline is already anticipating that more passengers will stuff carry-on bags to the gills, which will mean more scrutiny, and possibly requiring some attempted carry-ons to be checked. That in turn will cause flight delays and affect on-time performance numbers. This:

Now, executive vice president of operations Justin Jones has admitted that gate-checking of carry-on bags will surge due to limited overhead space. 'We assume our gate-check bags will probably go up five times from what we have today' Jones told the Airlines Confidential podcast. This challenge is especially significant for Southwest, whose aircraft have smaller overhead bins than competitors — a design choice based on its longstanding free-bag policy. As a result, the airline will now more strictly enforce size limits for carry-ons.

Will be "fun." 

Also fun? With Southwest's layoffs a couple of months ago, will that further slow the increased bag checks?

Somewhat related? In a follow-up to a previous story, the new "basic" fares, I have heard from a pilot I know, will be "teaser" fares to gauge interest and then be used to set pricing, kind of like how baseball teams do variable pricing whether the St. Louis Cardinals are playing the Chicago Cubs, or they're playing the Arizona Diamondbacks.

If the basic prices "hit" then the Wanna Fly Away and above will all be moved higher and the basic offer will be jerked. If not, it may stay a few more days.

And, at the tail end, if a plane isn't filling up quite as much as hoped, basic prices may be offered near the end to goose butts into seats. 

On bags, the pilot friend recommended signing up for Rapid Rewards, which Southwest has been pushing hard. I've not checked details yet on whether it would be worth it or not.

Now, on the more turbulence? Paul Singer, vulture capitalist head of Elliott Investment Management, will say that proves the need for even more "reforms." Let's note that Singer is already on record as wanting to can CEO Robert Jordan.