This is looking like it will be painful.

But at the end of the day it will come down to schedules and price. Since my home airport has Southwest controlling 60-70% of the local flights, I don't see myself shifting business away from Southwest as a result of these changes.

Plus can it be any worse than United, Delta, or American already are? I don't think that would be possible.

My sense is the experience of flying Southwest is about to get a lot less enjoyable than it already is... I always found it to be easy. I see posts here complaining about gate agents and flight attendants not enforcing carry on rules. At the end of the day when bin space runs out people have to gate check bags, which I see on a very small fraction of my full Southwest flights; conversely I see almost every flight gate checking going on when I fly full United and Delta flights. So I am not sure how much of an issue this really is.

The pre-boarding strikes me as the bigger issue that is killing efficiency here and there is nothing they can do about it other than this move to assigned seats. I run the full assortment of flights those with no pre-boarders and those with 30 pre-boarders. Guess which flights are late/delayed...

There will be major changes to marketing, etc. if they change the policy about bag fees. But at the end of the day the public will pay up and keep flying. Elliott group knows this.

Too bad Southwest wasn't privately held or employee owned, it would have prevented this situation from occurring and enabled Southwest to keep being Southwest. Southwest keeps making plenty of money even if it isn't "enough" by Wall Street standards. I'd prefer they go destroy some other company.