Southwest Airlines Cuts Ad Spending as Customers Move Away From X

Mary Schlangenstein, Bloomberg News

A Southwest Airlines aircraft at a gate at Austin–Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) in Austin, Texas, US, on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. Southwest Airlines Co.'s leaders will take a pay cut following the December breakdown that resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and more than $1 billion in added costs. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Southwest Airlines Co. has slashed its advertising dollars on X as the carrier increasingly interacts with customers outside of social media.

“Our spend is down significantly,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan said Wednesday in an interview, adding that the pullback extends to other platforms besides X. “We are in the middle of evaluating that right now.”

The shift is noteworthy for an industry that has long communicated with passengers — satisfied or otherwise — through social media. Airline customers have used X, the Elon Musk-owned site formerly known as Twitter, to voice complaints about travel issues or other problems and gain the attention of customer service workers monitoring social media feedback. Southwest now sees its customers interacting differently with the carrier.

Southwest has been increasing digital communications with customers through texts and new capabilities on its mobile app, and is continuing work on tools to allow passengers to resolve more issues themselves on personal devices.

“We still have some of our customer relations folks focused to make sure we get to those customers,” Whitney Eichinger, Southwest’s chief communications officer, said of X. “But I think we are seeing fewer comments on X from customers as I see more and more folks just kind of deviate from the platform.”

A representative for the social-media platform didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The pullback by Southwest coincides with a significant slump in ad revenue at X, which is on track to bring in roughly $2.5 billion this year by that metric, Bloomberg reported this week. The decline highlights advertisers’ unease with how X is handling content moderation under Musk, and in particular the new owner’s posts that amplify antisemitic and other extremist views.

Read More: Musk’s X 2023 Ad Sales Projected to Slump to About $2.5 Billion

Southwest said it was still “evaluating” whether to stop advertising on X, as some large brands have done in recent weeks.

Rival Delta Air Lines Inc. said it hasn’t changed its approach to X recently, while noting that it also assists passengers through its app and on platforms such as Facebook. United Airlines Holdings Inc., which stopped advertising on X in late 2022, didn’t immediately comment on whether customer interactions have decreased there. American Airlines Group Inc. didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Across social media and other venues, Southwest is reevaluating how it can reach new customers, said Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson.

“The landscape where you engage with travelers has changed so much,” he said.

--With assistance from Kurt Wagner.