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Welcome

Friends,

It’s Friday night, and I can’t help but weigh in on Southwest Airlines' recently announced changes.

599 words for you here—let’s get going.

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Story

My grandparents lived in Upstate New York on Lake Ontario. As a fourteen year old I flew to visit them once on Southwest Airlines. The Wright Amendment made this a little more difficult from Dallas Love Field, so I traveled to Buffalo via El Paso.

That routing alone is laughable.

But two 737s later, I made it to Buffalo—and I haven’t been back to El Paso since.

Southwest Airlines’ current state feels like a layover in El Paso en route to Buffalo: it’s a strange place to be for wherever you thought you were going.

And there is a lot of sensation right now for the, plainly, shocking changes announced by Southwest Airlines in this past week. Here are the three things that have my attention:

1. Southwest’s product has fundamentally changed; the halo is gone. As a passenger, virtually all incentive to fly Southwest has been, at best, erased. As a shareholder, you must wonder how on earth the airline will fare better by mirroring other, less successful, airlines. As a competitor, you must be absolutely thrilled.

2. As Natasha Bedingfield said in 2004, “the rest is still unwritten”. Southwest was visibly unfit post-pandemic and after the Christmas collapse in 2023 there were good reasons to call for change. The current efforts are, unmistakably, a movement of change that may yet prove fruitful in creating a more profitable airline over the long term. Emotion aside, time will tell.

3. Southwest is more than an airline: it is one of the most valuable brands in modern history. And that crown has all but been abdicated in a matter of days. I wrote about this a few days ago and I fear it is the misunderstood point by so many at the carrier’s helm right now.

To trivialize Southwest into purely a low fare airline is to miss the brand’s potential and larger opportunity. Put dramatically, Southwest should not be listing flight on Expedia: it should be buying Expedia. It should be licensing brand and technology to Icelandair, not codesharing for the first time ever. Their celebrated debut of red-eyes is four decades late. And the protectionism coupled with a lack of innovation that lead to the string of failures and now current state of affairs is likely the culprit.

It is hard to make a runner faster when you amputate the legs, but you will cut weight. I fear that the recent decisions at Southwest Airlines might be just that near-sighted.

There also may be no better time to start a new airline in Texas.

Big Picture: Southwest is, at best, reducing itself to just another airline. What that implicates in the long term for employees, passengers, shareholders, and competitors remains to be seen.

Happy flying.

Remember, this life you are living has meaning. Thank you for reading. I am grateful you are here and would love to hear from you. If you'd like to write me a note, simply reply to this email. Otherwise I'll see you in the next one.

Be well today. -Tommy

P.S. If I can help you plan your next travel adventure (slash help make your points go farther), I’d be delighted. You can schedule time together here.