Southwest Airlines has long been focused on direct bookings, and historically hasn’t partnered with online travel agencies or third parties when it comes to promoting its flights. That’s slowly starting to change. Recently, Southwest started displaying flights on Google Flights, and you’ll now also find the flights on KAYAK.
Southwest & KAYAK launch partnership
Effective immediately, Southwest flights have been integrated into travel metasearch engine KAYAK. So when you go to KAYAK to compare airfare, you’ll now see Southwest fares display alongside standard flight results.
That way you can easily compare fare attributes, like ticket refundability, travel credit transferability, same day changes, checked bags, flexible seating, and more. Then when you’re ready to book, you’ll be transferred to Southwest’s own website or mobile app to complete the transaction.
Here’s how KAYAK CEO Steve Hafner describes this:
“This is a great development for travelers. We first started showing Southwest in 2022 to KAYAK for Business customers. We’re thrilled to expand that relationship to the millions of leisure travelers who use KAYAK.”
As before, Southwest flights still aren’t actually bookable through any online travel agencies. However, the two biggest airfare “search engines” now show Southwest flights, which at least makes it much easier to compare airfare, which is great.
I’d be curious to know what exactly the economics are of this deal. Ordinarily KAYAK makes money by directing consumers to other online travel agencies or even to airline websites. However, other airlines are much more willing to pay for distribution costs than Southwest is. So I wonder if Southwest got an incredible deal from KAYAK, or how exactly this is playing out…
It’s nice to see the pace of changes at Southwest
As we all know, Southwest was basically stuck in its ways for decades, and didn’t pay much attention to what the competition was doing. In many ways, that was the company’s strength, and the airline historically did very well financially.
However, as trends have evolved after the pandemic, that’s no longer the case. Southwest is now under pressure to make major changes to improve its profitability. The airline has new activist investors, and is doing everything from introducing redeye flights, to adding premium and assigned seating, and more. I think we’re only going to see more and more changes at the airline.
I’m happy to see the evolution, and personally I don’t think we’ll see Southwest go too extreme compared to the competition.
Bottom line
Southwest Airlines flights now show up on metasearch engine KAYAK. This is a pretty significant development, and comes just weeks after Southwest flights began displaying on Google Flights. I’m curious if this is the extent of Southwest’s distribution evolution, or if we soon see Southwest flights bookable through online travel agencies…
What do you make of Southwest flights now displaying on KAYAK?
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