Southwest Knows How to Make Flyers Pay More Despite Bags-Fly-Free Mantra
Photo Credit: Southwest Airlines passengers look at the new features at Dallas Love Field on the opening day of the new terminal on April 16, 2013. Southwest Airlines / Stephen M. Keller
Skift Take
Southwest doesn't pray to the altar of Bags Fly Free, but it will keep its first two checked bags for free policy as long as the program continues to let it take market share. It's that simple.
Despite Southwest's new commercial touting "Bags Fly Free" and free TV from the Dish Network, the airline generated 17% of its ancillary revenue last year from excess bag fees and AirTran's bag fees.
In fact, Southwest's ancillary revenue in 2012 grew 40.2% over the previous year to $1.65 billion, and that made Southwest the fourth largest collector of ancillary fee revenue behind United ($5.35 billion), Delta ($2.57 billion), and American Airlines ($1.98 billion) among 53
