Southwests’ Bags Fly Free policy might be delaying your flight

Southwest Airlines is one of the most popular companies transporting customers through the skies, building a loyal and almost cultish following. One of their policies that has customers fiercely loyal is that bags fly free.

But according to the Dallas Morning News, that very policy could be the reason that your Southwest flight is being delayed. The reason is simple, fees for checked bags discourages customers from traveling with a lot of luggage, so on airlines where it costs to check bags, customers are inclined to carry-on instead of checking luggage.

“What we found is an improved departure delay performance right after airlines started to charge bag fees,” said Mazhar Arikan, a business professor at the University of Kansas who co-authored the study published last month in the journal Management Science.

The inverse of that is what the study sees happening with Southwest. Customers know they can check bags for free, and bring bags with them, which consequently takes time to load and unload off of planes resulting in delays.

It is worth noting that the difference the study identified between Southwest and airlines that charge for checked bags is a whopping two-minutes. It might not seem like a huge delay when isolating a single flight, but with airplanes making multiple trips a day, resulting in multiple loadings and unloading of bags, the delays can build up to a substantial amount by the end of the day.

The study also notes that the drop in checked bags at other airlines has positively impacted Southwest though.

The good news for Southwest travelers is that the airline has no plans to alter its policy, focused more on customer loyalty than the additional money the could make from baggage fees.