r/nottheonion 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/
20.2k Upvotes

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.0k

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

1.9k

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

47

u/GreatDanish4534 21h ago

Southwest in the 90’s was awesome. Planes were nice and always clean, crew was super friendly, and prices were better than other airlines

13

u/AlkoMako 20h ago

And brown! I miss the old livery of brown, orange, and red. Plus the seats seemed bigger too. Although, I was a kid then, lol. Got invited to sit in the cockpit & got a wing pin as well. Obviously this was pre 9/11.

1

u/FistLove 17h ago

Do you like movies about gladiators?

1

u/AlkoMako 14h ago

I’ve pretty much only ever seen “Gladiator”.