That Southwest’s Travel Intent increased 2% over the past month and 8% over the past two months seemed to indicate customers had moved past Southwest’s holiday troubles. 

That feeling was mirrored in Southwest customers’ view towards the airline’s ability to stay on-time. Like Southwest’s Travel Intent, Southwest’s sentiment towards On-Time had fallen sharply after the holidays. It increased 6% over the past month and 17% over the past two months. While still below the airline industry average, this move, too, seems to show customers are feeling better about Southwest

“Even though I was affected with all the nation-wide holiday flight cancellations (even though we weren't affected by weather), Southwest is still the best,” one customer told HundredX in February 2023.

“They provided excellent customer service by crediting my family with free flight miles, as well as provided reimbursement for rental car, food and lodging. Great job taking care of the customer,” the customer continued. 

The key question now is whether the recent technical issues will impact the recovery in Southwest's Travel Intent and on-time performance perception. The airline seemed to resolve the April 18th problem quickly, but it remains to be seen if another round of headlines about Southwest delays will significantly impact customer intentions and behavior.

HundredX will continue to monitor the travel sector, particularly Southwest, to understand how “The Crowd” shifts its travel plans in the wake of potential future technical issues, price changes, labor and capacity shifts and other important strategic decisions. The coming months will be crucial to Southwest’s recovery journey.

1. For this piece, all metrics presented, including Net Travel Intent (Travel Intent), and Net Positive Percent / Sentiment are presented on a trailing one-month basis unless otherwise noted. 
2. Travel Intent for most Travel subsectors represents the percentage of customers who expect to travel more with or spend more with that brand over the next 12 months, minus those that intend to travel or spend less.
3. HundredX measures sentiment towards a driver of customer satisfaction as Net Positive Percent (NPP), which is the percentage of customers who view a factor as a positive (reason they liked the products, people, or experiences) minus the percentage who see the same factor as a negative.
   

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