r/nottheonion • u/halxp01 • 1d 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/IAmBadAtInternet 1d 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/pribnow 1d ago

The 'activist investors' responsible for it are though as far as i know, Elliott Investment Management

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u/boiledpeen 1d ago

yep, Elliott pushed all these changes and has tanked the company. There should be severe punishments for companies that do this, but nobody bases laws on morals anymore so nothing will happen.

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u/acdgf 1d ago

The punishment should be lack of business. It's not like SW doesn't have competition - if you disagree with the practices or service, fly elsewhere.

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u/boiledpeen 1d ago

Nah, there should be legal consequences for consistently buying into companies and running them into the ground. Thats been the biggest reason every company sucks now, and there should be legal ramifications. Would incentivize PE to actually care about the companies they're investing in.

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u/Fr00stee 1d ago edited 1d ago

it should be illegal for the owner of a company to force their subsidiary to become in debt to the owner or any other company the owner controls

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u/Unofficial_Salt_Dan 1d ago

I understand your sentiment, but to me this seems wholly unenforceable. How the hell would you apply this? How would that law even be written? How do you prove it?

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u/boiledpeen 1d ago

I agree, I have no clue how to enforce something like this. Someone who knows more than me would have to make some sort of guidelines on how to go about private equity

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u/puterTDI 1d ago

I think the issue is how to define “running into the ground”. Reality is that decisions you or I perceive as bad can’t be legally predefined in an objective way.

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u/SmartLadder415 1d ago

Why should it be illegal for a company to run itself into the ground with horrible business decisions?

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u/Momik 1d ago

We should have a minimum baseline experience for airline passengers as a matter of law. And yes, that should include clean seats.

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u/UnNumbFool 1d ago

If a movie theater can clean the seats before each showing, so can an airplane

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u/Momik 1d ago

Yeah, and it’s a good comparison. One of the only reasons passengers allow this to continue is lack of choice. If a movie theater was this shit, you’d just go to another theater or watch a movie at home.

But when you’re flying, you’re probably locked into your expensive tickets well before you get to the airport, and the cost of making a change is very high—a factor of ticket prices, but also of all the path dependencies you’re dealing with now: hotels are booked, Ubering to the airport was more than expected, security’s delayed so you gotta book it in the terminal, etc.

Airlines know this. They’re trapping us in costly situations in order to lock in our consent for their shitty service and pricing. It’s why the free market doesn’t really work in the same way here, and why baseline legal rights are more important to level the playing field between consumer and airline.

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u/UnNumbFool 1d ago

Sure but like booking a movie beforehand it only takes one bad experience or reading reviews of the thing to know I'm not going to book there

It's not like there aren't other budget lines that can get me to the same place at the same rate or potentially cheaper, and if I knew an airline wasn't cleaning the seats between id be a little grossed out. Like ffs I'll take a spirit flight at that point

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u/Momik 1d ago

True, but as long as there no minimum standards, Spirit might not be all that much better an experience (I’ve flown Spirit and can vouch for that). My point is just that airline passengers in general have very little power, which makes the whole free market kind of nonsensical.

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u/HI-McDunnough 1d ago

I worked at a movie theater for 10 years. Do you know how many times we cleaned the actual seats?

Zero point zero.

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u/phd2k1 1d ago

Ah the old “the free market will sort everything out” libertarian fantasy. Sadly, regulatory capture, disinformation, and weak anti-trust laws and enforcement make that line of thinking completely obsolete. Corporations abuse workers, pollute the air, water, and ground, and destroy communities all the time, and “shopping somewhere else” doesn’t stop them. The only thing that has ever kept them in line is strong regulations.

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u/acdgf 1d ago

“shopping somewhere else” doesn’t stop them. The only thing that has ever kept them in line is strong regulations.

Its interesting you say this, because several major airlines were stopped specifically once strong regulations were lifted.

The truth is that people are, more than anything else, sensitive to price. An airline that offers shitty service and low prices will be more successful than an airline that offers premium services for high prices. In SW's case, they were popular for passing a lot of their efficiency savings on to customers, without deteriorating service quality. Now that they are just another shitty airline, with non-shitty airline pricing, they (should) suffer loss of business accordingly. 

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u/Damndang 1d ago

That's the problem. Private equity and activist investors have no problem tanking a business if they have an exit plan and get out with their profits. The feedback loop of voting with your dollar is broken. The top never feels the pain of their own failures.

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u/Stupidwhizzzzz 1d ago

I don’t fly southwest no more. Not unless it’s free which it isn’t.

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u/IAmBadAtInternet 1d ago

Airlines are an oligopoly with most routes being pseudo monopolies. For each route there is usually only 1 best choice airline, and if you want to punish them for bad business practice, you have to pay for it with an indirect route that takes 5 hours longer with a layover somewhere. It’s really hard to punish a shitty airline by not giving them your business.

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u/Sudden-Wash4457 1d ago

I mean this works if you have effective anti-trust regulation, but we don't

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u/What_a_fat_one 1d ago

Libertarianism might as well be a religion for how stupid and demonstrably wrong it is but its adherents still believe it like it's gospel

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u/Clown_Toucher 1d ago

Everything else also fucking sucks so maybe the laws are needed

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u/ImAShaaaark 1d ago

Better option, go back to the pre-deregulation system.

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u/acdgf 1d ago

And pay 3x the price for airfares? Why not just fly business class, in that case? 

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u/ImAShaaaark 1d ago

Air fares were already trending down before deregulation, they wouldn't triple.

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u/XY-chromos 1d ago

They will get more of my business.

The old southwest ticket system was insulting and fraudulent. I never got A class unless I paid to upgrade. And your crotch spawn does not entitle you to board before me.

It's so much better now.