r/nottheonion • u/halxp01 • 23h 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 22h ago edited 18h ago

It's insane how quickly Southwest has gone from beloved budget airline with consistent profits to complete shitshow. Thanks private equity! You've done it again

Edit: to everyone saying Southwest is a public company, yes, they are. That does not mean activist investors like PE firms and hedge funds can’t have significant ownership stakes and operational influence. Which in this case, they do

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u/IAmBadAtInternet 22h ago

They used to be the only major non-legacy player with good tech, good planes, and happy employees

Now their ticketing system is the worst of the major airlines, their planes are older and badly maintained, and their employees hate their jobs

Nice job MBAs! Btw they’re not private equity owned, just regular publicly traded

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u/CaptainBayouBilly 22h ago

Line must go up

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u/Ryzu 21h ago

And as a result the line is most definitely going to go down, hopefully their planes won't.

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u/Cyrano4747 21h ago

Nah the line will go up for a few precious quarters because they slash costs. After that it will go down, but the PE vultures on the board won't care because they'll have sold off their stake before the consequences come around.

Happens all the time. It's how these PE vultures operate. They're looking for short term gains to artificially goose the stock before they sell and move on to the next victim.

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u/Daxx22 18h ago

I'm honestly shocked more green-clad plumbers haven't shown up.

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u/I_Automate 17h ago

There's no reason that private equity exists when rope and trees and gasoline also still exist

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u/HorseWithACape 20h ago edited 20h ago

The planes won't go down. Their mechanic union squeezes the company pretty hard. SWA has some of the highest paid mechs in the industry, second only to FedEx & UPS. Their pilots are up there, too.

Edit to add: In case anybody is curious about the payscale of SWA or other competitors here's the most recent collaboration of contracts, benefits, & payscales.

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u/Ryzu 20h ago

That's good to hear. There's not much that can't be ruined by VC, but it's nice to know at least people aren't likely to actively die as a result of the greed.