Southwest’s LUV Lost
3/10/202652 min
Southwest Airlines is financially strong. Record revenues. Stock price near multi-year highs.
Yet longtime customers are walking away angry.
In this episode, we unpack the growing tension between Wall Street performance and customer loyalty at Southwest Airlines. Host Aaron Wolpoff sits down with brand strategist Rene Huey-Lipton, founder of The Dame Collective and former strategy lead on Southwest during its golden years.
The question at the center of the conversation:
How can a brand be winning financially while simultaneously losing its best customers?
From controversial assigned seating to unpopular...
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:01
Welcome to We Fixed It. You're Welcome, the show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride, and we try to put them back better than we found them.
Aaron Wolpoff· Host0:10
Southwest's stock price is doing great. It's trading near the best levels it's seen in years. The company's revenues are up. If you follow their financials, it's quite a turnaround, and yet it does not feel like Southwest is back on top. A recent Reddit thread with 200 upvotes said, "After 20-plus years of loyalty, I won't fly Southwest Airlines." Another said that Southwest has thrown away all their goodwill in an attempt to be like every other carrier. Another recent flyer said, "This ain't the old Southwest." Another said, "This is not what I signed up for." Another said, "I've flown Southwest exclusively for 10 years. This may be my farewell." Check all the socials, and the sentiment is the same. People, especially longtime flyers, are steaming mad. This is not just the internet being the internet. People are pushing back on Southwest because it's not what it used to be, and loyal customers are asking for exactly what they want, and the company just isn't doing it. But they could, and we're gonna give them a nudge in the right direction. We're gonna try and close the gap between financial success and customer satisfaction because when you're losing your most loyal customers with no end in sight, something's gotta change. It's a big one, and Melissa and Chino are not here today, so I've gotta fix this myself. Huh.