Originally Posted by
newsmanhoss
This is very true indeed. I have seen many cases where Southwest wasn't the lowest in town on certain routes.
For some travelers, however, Southwest might not have the lowest base fare, but could still be cheaper due to the lack of bag fees. I wonder how long WN will be able to hold out on that. Many people always look at the base fare and forget to factor in the bag fees.
Southwest has been doing a great job of marketing this advantage. If, over the long haul, they plan to remain the last big carrier without these fees, they should continue to hammer away at this competitive advantage so that people who check bags get in the habit of automatically adding in bag fees when comparing with fares on other carriers.
I've actually seen instances where Southwest has had the highest fares among multiple carriers serving the same route. There are many people who automatically think Southwest has the cheapest flights and will not do any comparison shopping. It's a great position for Southwest to be in.
As for the no baggage fees, I think Southwest has backed itself into a corner here. They've seen how much additional revenue this has brought in at other carriers yet can't really benefit from it. They'll get skewered if they do a 180 and starting charging for checked bags. As a result, they need to look towards other sources of ancillary revenue. Southwest's CEO recently acknowledged this.