Southwest Airlines will begin charging customers a fee to check bags, abandoning a decades-long practice that executives had described last fall as key to differentiating the budget carrier from its ...

The airline estimated in September that charging bag fees would bring in about $1.5 billion a year but cost the airline $1.8 billion in lost business from customers who chose to fly Southwest ...

Southwest said Tuesday that it would continue to offer two free checked bags to Rapid Rewards A-List preferred members and customers traveling on Business Select fares, and one free checked bag to ...