When Southwest Airlines launched in 1971, flying three Boeing 737 jets between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, few imagined the impact its business model would have on the aviation industry in America and beyond. In the decades that followed, low-cost carriers (LCCs) pummelled incumbents by offering cheap, no-frills fares to keep costs down and planes full, flying point-to-point rather than connecting through big hubs.
Today Southwest is America’s biggest domestic carrier and the world’s fourth-largest airline. It turned an annual profit every year from 1973 to 2019, before the covid-19 pandemic struck, with a net margin often exceeding 20%—a striking feat in an industry known for its abysmal returns. Its success has been imitated across the globe. In 2001 budget carriers accounted for less than a tenth of global flight capacity. That figure is now a third, according to OAG, a consultancy.
Yet lately the original LCC has found itself in a tailspin. Southwest’s sales of $26bn in 2023 exceeded their pre-pandemic level. Net profits, though, have crumbled, from $2.3bn in 2019 to barely $500m last year. Its net margin was less than 2%. Southwest’s troubles have caught the attention of Elliott Management, a fearsome activist investor that has amassed a 9.7% stake in the company and is agitating for change. On August 26th it sent a letter to the company’s shareholders arguing that, among other things, the airline should sack its chief executive and chairman.
Southwest’s low-cost rivals in America can hardly gloat. Spirit and JetBlue, two ultra-cheap airlines, were blocked in January from merging on competition grounds. Neither has turned an annual profit since the pandemic; Spirit is reportedly trying to restructure its debts. Frontier, another rival whose own attempt to merge with Spirit fell apart in 2022 after JetBlue muscled in, is also bleeding cash. The share prices of America’s four biggest LCCs have nosedived by nearly 50%, on average, since the start of 2023; those of America’s three legacy carriers, American, Delta and United, are up by 5%.
What has gone wrong for America’s LCCs? Rising fuel prices and labour costs have crimped profits—but no more so than for full-service airlines. The bigger problem for Southwest and its kind is that competition is growing from once-sleepy legacy carriers.
Full-service airlines, offering a plusher in-flight experience alongside lounges and loyalty programmes, have long attracted passengers who are unwilling to be treated like cattle. Lately, however, they have also begun to offer cheap fares of their own in a bid to claw back market share from LCCs. According to Keith McMullan of Aviation Strategy, a consultancy, legacy carriers are “filling up the empty seats at the back with no-frills fares”. David Vernon of Bernstein, a broker, notes that the number of basic-economy fares added by the big three legacy carriers is roughly equivalent to the entire capacity of Spirit. “The LCC’s unique position in the market is gone,” he says.
At the same time, consolidation has improved the profitability and widened the reach of America’s legacy carriers. Over the past 15 or so years six have merged into three. Their hubs, which can serve as destinations or stopping-off points, offer passengers many more options for getting from one city to another compared with a carrier flying point to point. The failed tie-up between Spirit and JetBlue, however, suggests regulators are in no mood to let budget airlines consolidate in response. (The merger of Alaska and Hawaiian, two smaller full-service airlines, looks as if it may be approved, but only because the two have few overlapping routes.)
Changing travel patterns are an additional headache for low-cost carriers that rely on keeping planes full to turn a profit. Day trips for business meetings have grown less common since the pandemic. Southwest once flew 12 flights a day between Oakland and Burbank in California; it now runs eight. The 101 destinations it served pre-covid has swollen to 117 as it has reassigned planes in response to lower demand on certain routes. The upshot has been more empty seats.
America’s budget carriers are responding to the growing pressure in different ways. Southwest recently announced it would start charging for assigned seats, ending its long-standing policy of letting passengers choose a spot once they have boarded the plane. It is also said to be reconsidering its policy of allowing two free bags per passenger. Frontier and Spirit, by contrast, are attempting to move upmarket. In May Frontier introduced four new fares including a business class. Spirit is waiving fees for changing or cancelling flights and offering more generous baggage allowances.
Budget airlines elsewhere will be keeping a close watch. For now, Europe’s LCCs are flying high. Last year Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline by passenger volume, notched up a record profit. John Grant of OAG says that European LCCs have been more adept than American ones at charging customers for add-ons; Ryanair has made an art of it. It helps that Europe, where populations are more densely packed and flight destinations more numerous, is well-suited to LCCs. Although Ryanair serves busy routes, such as those between European capitals, much of its traffic is between smaller destinations where it is the sole carrier. Europe also has more secondary airports that are near big cities but cheaper to operate from.
America’s budget carriers, by contrast, more often go head-to-head with legacy carriers on congested routes. Those American LCCs which are faring far better, such as Allegiant, Breeze, Avelo and Sun Country, have focused on flying from small cities to holiday destinations, thus serving a more limited market.
Budget airlines are also soaring in the developing world. Last year IndiGo, an Indian LCC that dominates the country’s aviation industry, put in an order for 500 planes from Airbus, the largest ever by an airline, amid sky-high demand.
Ryanair and IndiGo currently face weaker incumbent competition, notes Mr McMullan of Aviation Strategy. In time that may change. Europe’s legacy airlines have been steadily consolidating into three big groups—Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, and IAG, which owns British Airways. Likewise, IndiGo will have to contend with a revitalised Air India, the national carrier which is now in the hands of the Tata Group, one of the country’s biggest conglomerates. Budget airlines everywhere should be prepared for turbulence. ■
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