Southwest has hoped that bucking the airline fee frenzy would bring in extra customers, creating more revenue without creating more fees. So far, it’s been hard to see any benefit in Southwest’s traffic numbers. The flying public hasn’t rewarded the airline, despite travelers’ stated unhappiness with fees.
This is the key point. I've long asserted WN would regret not going along with the other airline fees, as those fee dollars are 100% pure cash profit.
Now WSJ is saying the same.
Does anyone have any real data to validate? I'd think by end of summer we'd have a solid 9-12 months of data look-back to make an assessment.