Southwest’s holiday hangover is far from over

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a conga line of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. Southwest Airlines is in the hot seat. Scotus w [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a conga line of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Southwest Airlines]( is in the hot seat. - Scotus wants to [travel back in time](. - 2023 could be full of [bankruptcies](. - Brands are neither [funny-haha](, nor [funny-weird](. Bah Humbug, Southwest Picture this: You’re an employee at Southwest Airlines. You’re on the [86th coffee]( of your shift, which has lasted 139 hours, 14 minutes and 27 seconds. Your eyes are open, but all you see is dead people a smattering of red words flashing on your screen: DELAYED, CANCELED, FROZEN, REASSIGNED. [Bags are everywhere](, and [they]( [snake]( [around]( [the baggage claim]( like some kind of conga line from hell. [“GIVE ME MY SH*T!”]( one lady screams in your face, her spit making landfall above your left eyebrow. Your finger is stuck in a doom loop from hitting the return button on your keyboard so many times that the “NOT ABLE TO REBOOK” error message has started to look like “NO TABLE TO READ BOOK,” the book being “The Nightmare Before, During and After Christmas.” [The queue to get on a new flight]( makes Taylor Swift’s Ticketmaster debacle look like child’s play. Passengers are discussing various ways to bribe the only pilot in the building to take them to their destination — “do you take Venmo?” someone asks halfheartedly. “I have a homemade yule log and a few Xanax we can throw in as a sweetener!” another person says. One guy comes up to the counter to thank you, which is weird, considering most people are crying to their mothers over FaceTime: “To be honest, [I really don't like my family](. I knew Southwest would come through,” he admits. Tens of thousands of Americans spent Christmas weekend [stuck in Terminal B](, swallowing soggy pizza from a Wolfgang Puck franchise for dinner. The closest thing to a relative they encountered was the Auntie Anne's they splurged on for dessert: This morning, the chaos continued, with Southwest [canceling more than half its flights](. The air carrier is blaming the bomb cyclone, but plenty of other major airlines were able to weather the storm just fine. What, exactly, led to this horrific moment? Well, as Thomas Black wrote for us back in September, “air travel is full of nightmare scenarios. The percentage of cancellations is at the highest in at least 15 years excluding the pandemic-ravaged 2020.” But before we cry out for “MOAR REGULATION,” Thomas says we need to consider the context. Covid turned the economy upside down, and we’re emerging from it with some battle wounds: labor shortages, supply chain snarls, and a transportation system that is more off track than on. If the government were to step in and demand more accountability, airlines would simply hike their prices higher than your grandpa’s adult incontinence briefs, to the detriment of our wallets (and sanity). Instead, we should turn to the C-word to exact revenge: competition. With [no end to the horror in sight](, Southwest is staring into a sea of angry customers who will most certainly book with a different airline next time. Citi analysts are already estimating that the cheerless holiday could end up [shaving 5% from]( Southwest’s fourth-quarter profits. Perhaps in 2023, we’ll all be [waving to Saint Nick]( from the [windows]( of Southwest rivals’ planes. (That’s just a joke. I don’t want a [Christmas lawsuit]( on my hands.) Bonus Airport Reading: - The best nonfiction books of 2022 [that will make you think](. — Stephen L. Carter - Books that will help you restore [financial common sense]( in 2023. — Merryn Somerset Webb Supreme Scrooge The holidays are normally a season of nostalgia — an opportunity to reminisce about the good ol’ days when we had more hair. But the Supreme Court is taking it to a whole new level. The court has spent the past year “restoring a nostalgic, [never-was version of constitutional history](, in place of long-established precedent,” according to Noah Feldman. In a single year, the court managed to: - [Reverse Roe v. Wade](, eliminating the right to abortion. - Declare that the separation of [church and state is dead](. - Reinterpret the free-exercise clause to require [state funding of religious education](. - Decide that [the Second Amendment]( blocked states’ concealed-carry laws. If I knew any better, I’d say Donald Trump’s three Supreme Court appointments managed to wind back the clock all the way to the era of perms and rotary phones. “The court’s forays into history in 2022 were noteworthy for their distortion of historical facts and trends,” Noah explains, adding that the conservative justices relied less on truth and more on an “idealized fantasy." Their radical vision is only beginning to take shape: Just this afternoon, the court ordered the pandemic-era [Title 42 border restriction to be kept in effect]( for at least two more months. Although 2022 will be remembered as the year the Trump court started to make its mark, its influence won’t end there. [Read the whole thing](. Telltale Charts Thanks to the hangover of unusually low interest rates during the pandemic, 2022 was a pretty chill year for bankruptcies. But that won’t last. 2022’s sky-high interest rates will soon catch up with corporate America: A reckoning “with its [addiction to cheap debt]( is coming — and possibly as soon as next year,” Jonathan Levin writes. Did you know the “attention economy” was born in the 18th century? Ben Schott explores [the history of brands using humor to sell stuff](, to varying degrees of success. But the dawn of cancel culture and corporate caution may be ending the golden age of cringey commercial jokes. According to [Kantar](, advertisements have never been less funny. Further Reading [Using tutors to fight Covid-induced learning loss]( is a great idea, but consistency is key. — Bloomberg’s editorial board [Please don’t turn your hobby into a side hustle](. The knitting community (and your mental health) will thank you. — Erin Lowry Most of the happiest places in the world are in America. [Do you live in one of them?]( — Tyler Cowen [Science Twitter]( needs a new home. Will one of [these platforms]( suffice? — Lisa Jarvis and Tim Culpan Independent voters make up a good chunk of the American electorate. [They’ll hold the cards in 2024](. — David A. Hopkins The future of fusion can be found in [the ghost of fracking’s past](. — Liam Denning ICYMI Tesla [erased half]( of its pandemic rally. Kamala Harris got an [unexpected Christmas gift]( sent to her doorstep. The ringleader of the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer got [16 years behind bars](. The DOJ wants to know why [$372 million went missing]( after FTX’s bankruptcy. Kickers [Amazon packages]( are burning in India. Area man uses [angel figurine]( to hit his girlfriend in the head. Oh, yes, let’s buy our government officials [flamethrowers for Christmas](. The best way to spend New Year’s Eve [is at home](. Source: [@ZackBornstein]( via Twitter Notes:  Please send flamethrowers and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( | [Ad Choices]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022