Southwest’s change is the death of the company. I was a top .1% user for 5 years (literally flew so much I got companion pass in 2022). The thing is, Southwest misunderstood what their actual moat was. It wasn’t cheap flights though that worked. It wasn’t no seat assignments, though that again was a positive as well. Their moat was that they were the only airline that you could book a flight in 5 clicks if you had an account. Because of the simplicity of their offering and the operation, you could avoid the confusing bullshit that you had to deal with with all other airlines—which tier, which seat, which status, which flight insurance, which bag fee…etc They, the southwest leaders, confused their win as low cost—it wasn’t it was ease of use. And it’s gone—now they’re just like everyone else, but they have no experience being like everyone else—so they’re actually not just like everyone else, they’re the worst of the rest. I have booked 6 flights since the change that would have been a no brainer southwest for me in the past—each one I’ve booked Alaska. Because now, Southwest is only competing on price and flight options. I used to be happy to pick slightly worse flights for the simple fact that I had nothing to think about to accomplish it—now, I am forced to only judge them on the same things that all other airlines compete on. And they’re gonna lose. James Dyson famously said. “Be different, for the sake of it.” We literally call it product differentiation. Southwest was the only airline that was different—and they were the only airline that was profitable for 44 straight years (until COVID). And they gave that advantage away on purpose—Herb Kelleher is rolling over in his grave. Mark my words—in 5 years this is going to go down as the greatest fumble in modern corporate history—they don’t even have the excuse of failure to adapt to a new technology like Kodak or Xerox, they intentionally did this to themselves.