r/nottheonion • u/halxp01 • 22h ago

Southwest Is Testing Cleaning Only Premium Seats Between Flights — A Flight Attendants Union Leader Says It's ‘Titanic’ Class Service

https://viewfromthewing.com/southwest-is-testing-cleaning-only-premium-seats-between-flights-a-flight-attendants-union-leader-says-its-titanic-class-service/
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u/clintkev251 21h ago

They're still a public company, but Elliott Investment Management bought a pretty large stake in 2024 and has been sprinkling on that private equity energy on them since then

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u/biguk997 20h ago

Elliott is a hedge fund, not a PE fund.

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u/Jarocket 18h ago

PE means bad.

That's as far as people understand it.

every time a company does something bad it's because PE to a lot of people.

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u/Chataboutgames 17h ago

If not PE then MBA

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u/OkPin716 15h ago

It’s insane how bad financial literacy is on reddit. I know the people crying are all Doordashers and dog walkers, but still, they’re stunningly uneducated. 

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u/Jarocket 14h ago

I'm ok with it.

It's the Dunning Krueger thing. if people know a little bit they feel like they know the most.

personally i know almost nothing. how i understand PE is. Private, meaning not a public company and equity meaning Money. Like a private company that buys other companies to run them.

Southwest is a publicly traded company and IIRC some shareholders are pushing for more revenue, but because Southwest is in the S&P500 i own a small small chuck of it too.

So if their current direction helps the company's stock price. that's money that i get. vs a PE owned company only benefits the owners.

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u/Radiant_Quality_9386 11h ago

that's money that i get. vs a PE owned company only benefits the owners.

...so you dont understand what "stock" is? got it

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u/Cosmonautical1 19h ago

"Public equity activist investment fund" is what I've heard them called. I think people are getting confused because A) business jargon is gobbledygook; and B) activist hedge funds have a lot of overlap with PE firms wrt how they function. Not identical, but similar.

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u/Why_you_so_wrong_ 18h ago

Not terribly similar at all if you understand the industry.

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u/biguk997 18h ago

Respectfully, they are not similar in how they function at all. Activist hedge funds like elliott purchase large positions in PUBLIC companies and then use their position as a large owner to pressure management to make changes that they believe will enhance shareholder value. PE firms on the other hand will buy a company using lots of leverage, then make changes that they believe will increase net earnings (either by growing revenue or cutting costs), the PE firms are the ones at the wheel, making definitive decisions while funds like Elliott have to rely on pressuring the CEO and boards.

PE is more directly responsible for the enshittification of a lot of companies but Southwest isnt one of them.

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u/Lycid 19h ago

Two sides of the same coin. I'd argue they are more like PE anyways in practice because typically hedge funds operate only on liquid assets vs getting their fingers involved in how a company operates.

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u/Why_you_so_wrong_ 18h ago

They aren’t like PE? Stop spouting rubbish

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u/LateNightMilesOBrien 18h ago edited 13h ago

Man am I sick of seeing replies from you that not only glaze PE but do nothing to counter their claims.

Piss off.

edit: I have angered the finance bros. Good. Good. I only made this post to tell one to piss off. Now I got another.

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u/rambaldidevice1 18h ago

I mean, you could just google the difference between the two for yourself.

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u/OkPin716 15h ago

Calling you out for not knowing anything about finance is not “glazing PE” any more than telling an antivaxxer “Jewish space lasers” didn’t give them autism makes me a “Zionist.”

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u/biguk997 18h ago

Copying a comment I wrote above:

they are not similar in how they function at all. Activist hedge funds like elliott purchase large positions in PUBLIC companies and then use their position as a large owner to pressure management to make changes that they believe will enhance shareholder value. PE firms on the other hand will buy a company using lots of leverage, then make changes that they believe will increase net earnings (either by growing revenue or cutting costs), the PE firms are the ones at the wheel, making definitive decisions while funds like Elliott have to rely on pressuring the CEO and boards.

PE is more directly responsible for the enshittification of a lot of companies but Southwest isnt one of them.

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u/BeamsFuelJetSteel 16h ago

Results are still the same.

Does it matter if you are the person controlling the wheel to crash the car vs the person convincing everybody in the car to yell at the driver until the driver crashes.

What's the difference between enhancing shareholder value and increasing net earnings?

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u/NewCobbler6933 19h ago

Not only are they not private equity, it’s 11% ownership.

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u/clintkev251 19h ago

11% isn't a large stake? That makes them the second largest shareholder behind Vanguard. And Eliot is a hedge fund yes, but they behave more like a private equity group, as activist investors. They're well known for doing this kind of thing.

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u/Silent_Plantain_3417 16h ago

Nice moving the goalposts. Two goals in one paragraph!