Hedgefunds Ruin Everything

Goodbye, Southwest Airlines. You weren’t great, but you didn’t suck.

I started to love Southwest Airlines just about the same time it started to die.

I fly to Colorado often. And the worst part of flying to Colorado is having to connect through Denver airport. That means landing in and taking off in a sky that is bumpier than an anti-vaxxer’s skin after a “measles party.”

I’d love to say the above was a dramatic re-enactment but it’s actually footage of a flight above Denver.

And yeah, Southwest connects through Denver.

But they also connect through Phoenix, sometimes with a super convinient 45 minute layover that I have yet to miss or Las Vegas, where there’s a little more time but slot machines so you can lose your money instead of losing your lunch.

Seating wasn’t fun but it wasn’t any different than boarding in groups and there were airports where you could exit through the mouth or the butt of the plane. The pre-flight announcements could get a little “Jungle Book Adventure,” sometimes the shorts were a little tough on the eyes… but the worst would be if somebody brought some ghastly full meal from the airport Chili’s.

But I’ll take employees that liked their jobs, 60 calorie bags of pretzels and the occasional $8 tiny bottle of coping over a long layover and a 95% chance of turbulence.

I like the small bottles. They make me feel like a giant.

So I had made my peace with the good and the bad of this airline. So of course, that’s when the same group of people who ruin everything saddled up to ruin this.

In June 2024, the activist hedge fund Elliott Investment Management announced it had purchased about a $1.9 billion stake in Southwest Airlines, equating to roughly 10 – 11 % of the company’s shares. That position allowed the fund to push for changes in leadership and corporate strategy.

Changes like assigned seating you get to pay for. Free bags you get to pay for. Being told you have to sit in the seat you were assigned even if the whole plane was empty except for you — no more lounging like some tart on three seats when some billionaire thinks you’re getting something for free.

…And no, I’m not going to link to some other billionaire’s website.

I am watching Southwest Airlines turn into Frontier in real time. The minute a hedge fund bought into them and got on the board, everything that made them the Amtrak of the sky (that’s a dig and a compliment) has turned them into Temu Greyhound (that’s an insult).

Maybe the red line is going up but the experience is going down.

As “Brad On Message” said… “fix this nonsense.”

And perhaps they can. Perhaps the other 90% of the people who own Southwest can tell the 10% to kick rocks and find a middle-ground. Maybe not.

But it’s one more thing that was “not so serious” in this very serious time we all live in. A public airline getting smudged by people who fly private… no different than a social media site getting ruined by an asocial near-trillionaire.

It’s exhausting.

And unfortunate, it’s “Not Going Anywhere,” is it?