Southwest Airlines' CEO Doubles Down on Checked Bag, Seating Changes
Southwest Airlines' CEO Bob Jordan is doubling down on the company's controversial changes ending unassigned seating and free bags for most customers.
Both policy changes caused controversy among passengers as they were perks Southwest offered for years.
Jordan has repeatedly defended the changes and he did so again in a new interview with the New York Times on July 6.
The Times asked Jordan how it has felt "hearing from customers who don't like the changes to bad fees or seating processes" and he defended it.
"I know that we have some that are not happy - and we have many, many, many that are happy," he said.
"You have to keep talking because sometimes people don't understand you're doing. What I find is that once folks know where we're headed, they're very excited. I think you just have to play through this period of change because change is hard."
Jordan then claimed to the Times that "our employees are excited about the changes."
He said the previous open-seat boarding could be difficult for flight attendances to manage.
"Change is hard, and change is emotional," Jordan told the Times.
It's not the first time that Jordan has spoken out about the changes. He's been on a PR blitz on the topic, in a sense.
He's also opened up about layoffs at Southwest.
Jordan made the comments about layoffs on June 26 to author David Novak on the How Leaders Lead podcast.
“As we processed the layoff, I had a lot of times where I was sitting in my office crying, to be honest, crying about the decision,” Jordan said. “Not crying as in making that decision, but just the difficulty it was going to be for our people.”
Jordan also defended the move to assigned seating at the Bernstein 41st Annual Strategic Decisions Conference on May 29, 2025, according to a transcript posted by Seeking Alpha.
After bringing up assigned seating, he said, "It isn't a set of initiatives that are sort of crazy things that Southwest is doing that are unique to the industry. These are really things that the industry is doing. So I look at that and I see number one: low risk of implementation."