Sounges from Southwest Airport? Carrier open to higher -end changes

Arlington, Texas – Southwest Airlines consider airportHeadquarters and even long-haul international flights to win high spending customers, Bob Jordan CEO said on Wednesday.

“Everything customers need in 2025, 2030, we will not withdraw any of this. We will do it from the Southwest, but we are not going to say” we would never do it “, said Jordan in an interview with CNBC at a conference on the airport industry. “We know that we send customers to other airlines because there are things you may want you to put us on us. This includes things like fairs, like True Premium, like Flying Long-Haul International. ”

The Southwest is in the middle of a transformation. That loss Some of its policies like Open seatsa uniform cabin and allowing all customers to check two bags for free, things that had Define it Of his rivals in a large part of his 54 years of flight.

But he faced the pressure of competitors, and an activist investor pushed last year to increase income. And plane tickets in the United States have dropped.

Southwest and other carriers fired their forecasts 2025 Earlier this year, citing economic uncertainty. Jordan said on Wednesday that the airline continued to see cheaper prices.

“Summer is generally never on sale, and summer is strongly on sale at the moment,” he said.

Despite major changes to his business model, Jordan said that the carrier had not seen customers lacking for other airlines since she introduced basic economy tickets without frills and bag costs at the end of last month, the rivals of policies had already had.

But bringing changes to the high-end end is also important, he said.

Competitors like Delta airlines,, United Airlines And American airlines added more Luxury tourist destinations and more spacious and more expensive seats, and they also invested massively in airport. For example, earlier Wednesday, American unveiled plans to almost double his living room space in its center of Miami International Airport.

Jordan said he was “too early to put details” on potential changes, but he called Southwest Nashville International Airport – where the airline has a market share of more than 50%, according to airport data – like a place where customers are hungry.

“Nashville loves us, and we know that we have customers from Nashville who want salons. They want a first class. They want to go to Europe and they go to Europe,” he said.

But obtaining these things means that these customers must book on another airline, which could make them more likely to add the co-marked credit card of this rival to their wallets, he said.

“I want to send less and less customers to another airline,” he said.

Jordan said he was also too early to say if the South West will pass the purchase of longer planes, which he will have to go to Europe; He is invoked on the Boeing 737 for more than half a century. The Southwest has forged international partnerships-Icelandair and China Airlines, so far-but an landing of the Southwest in Europe at one point is on the table, he said.

“No commitment, but you can certainly see a day when we are like Southwest Airlines serving long destinations like Europe,” he said. “Obviously, you would need a different plane to serve this mission and we are open to watching what it would take to serve this mission.”

Closer to the southwest is still waiting for Boeing 737 Max 7s deliveries, the smallest plane of the Max family, which has still not won the federal certification of the Federat Administration. Jordan said the manufacturer had made progress with more coherent deliveries recently, but Southwest does not expect to pilot the max 7 in 2026.