The long familiar Southwest Airlines employees who provide curbside baggage service at San Diego International Airport will be gone for good by the end of this week, as part of a previously announced budget-cutting move.
Going forward, the airline says it will contract out the skycap service to a third-party company.
San Diego is one of just 10 remaining airports among the 52 skycap location in the Southwest network that still use airline employees, an airline spokesperson said Wednesday.
Employees affected by the change were notified in February that the airline would be transitioning to an outside company for the curbside service, the spokesperson added.
That was also the same month that Southwest announced it would be cutting 1,750 leadership positions, which amounted to about 15% of its corporate workforce.
While the use of outsourced companies to provide curbside service is more the norm than the exception these days, it marks yet another end of an era for Southwest, an airline known for its customer service and complimentary perks like free checked baggage. Come May 28, Southwest will end its “bags fly free” policy for most airline customers.
At the San Diego airport, most major airlines, like American, United and Delta, provide skycap service that they contract out to another company. Alaska, Hawaiian and Southwest have been the only ones currently using their own employees, said airport spokesperson Nicole Hall.
Even so, the change in staffing of the longstanding skycap service erases yet another defining feature that has differentiated Southwest from its rivals, says airline industry expert Henry Harteveldt.
“It’s a real disappointing move for Southwest to make, considering they’ll also start charging for checked luggage May 28,” said Harteveldt, founder of San Francisco-based Atmosphere Research Group. “It a part of Southwest’s ongoing efforts to reduce costs, but at what price to the customer experience?
“When Southwest has its own employees doing the skycap work, the customer has an added sense of trust and credibility and as a Southwest employee, that skycap may try to go the extra mile to get a bag through to the plane if a customer is late. We don’t know if that will happen with a third party.”
San Diegan Shandon Harbour, who’s been a Southwest customer for more than three decades, said she put considerable effort into lobbying on behalf of preserving the existing skycap team but to no avail. She says she’s so moved by the departure of the employees that she’s planning a trip to the airport Friday morning, a cake and signs in hand, “because this team of skycaps are iconic.
“I couldn’t get any traction on saving the team,” said Harbour, who is president of the San Diego chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors. “This is about ‘the people in our neighborhood.’ And they are the friendly smile that you receive at the curb when you are entering the crazy world of travel inside the building.
“They were a huge help to the airport during the crazy foggy morning in December that forced multiple airline closures as they moved travelers through the airport. I just love great customer service, and in a world where that hardly exists anymore, I am saddened to see Southwest lose that touch that they were known for.”
Southwest Airlines declined to respond to specific questions about the changeover in San Diego, saying only that “Southwest continues to offer our customers in San Diego who choose to use it a skycap service option to check bags. Customers also may check bags through kiosks and our bag drop service, or through full-service Customer Service positions in the ticket lobby.”
