Andrew Watterson
Chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines
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Aug 20, 2026
Southwest's COO on the MAX 7 and Ops Fixes
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10:40
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11:15

Brett SnyderHOST
Do you have numbers on that? Like, is that the case of what you've been seeing?

Andrew WattersonGUEST
Yes, our carry-ons, our kind of gate check bags are, I think, running about 10 bags per fly or something like that on average.

Andrew WattersonGUEST
And so those changes we made subsequent to go live along with the higher loads is when you saw that crunch happen.

Andrew WattersonGUEST
And what's interesting is kind of 30 minutes before departure when we start boarding, we are at all time highs of how early we board.

Andrew WattersonGUEST
So at that 30 minutes, we on average, I think, start boarding like 27 minutes, which is almost mathematically impossible to be at 30 minutes.

Andrew WattersonGUEST
So we start boarding better than ever, but we're not closing the door better than ever.

Andrew WattersonGUEST
And it's that last 10 minutes when you have the confluence of the passengers and the bags.