\n
<\/p>\n
Activist\u00a0hedge fund\u00a0Elliott\u00a0Management has amassed a $1.9 billion stake in\u00a0Southwest Airlines<\/a>\u00a0and plans to push for leadership\u00a0changes at the airline that has lagged big rivals.<\/p>\n The stake makes Elliott one of Southwest\u2019s largest shareholders, according to FactSet. Shares of Southwest were up 7% in premarket trading Monday.<\/p>\n The company had a market capitalization of $16.6 billion as of Friday\u2019s close.<\/p>\n Southwest has struggled with delays at\u00a0Boeing<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0new 737 Max planes<\/a>, the newest models of the plane which the carrier exclusively flies, as well as shifting travel demand patterns after the pandemic.<\/p>\n The airline\u2019s leaders are now looking for new ways to drum up revenue to better compete with rivals that offer travelers more perks and products. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan, who took the helm in February 2022 after decades with the airline, told CNBC in April that the carrier is considering ditching its\u00a0single class of airplane<\/a>\u00a0seating and longtime boarding method.<\/p>\n The airline also faced a reckoning from a\u00a0holiday meltdown<\/a>\u00a0at the end of 2022 that cost it more than $1 billion and forced the airline long known for good customer service to win over the flying public and make quick fixes to its internal staff scheduling software.<\/p>\n Southwest shares are down by more than 50% from three years ago when travel demand, led by domestic trips, was starting to come back. In contrast,\u00a0Delta Air Lines<\/a>\u00a0shares are up around 10% over that period and\u00a0United Airlines<\/a>\u00a0are down about 7%.<\/p>\n Elliott\u2019s campaigns at other companies have likewise centered on a change in leadership.\u00a0Elliott\u2019s second campaign at\u00a0Crown Castle<\/a>\u00a0in 2022 and settlement agreement with automotive parts supplier\u00a0Sensata<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year are just two instances.<\/p>\n In just the last few months, the activist has taken a $2.5 billion stake in semiconductor firm\u00a0Texas Instruments<\/a>, a $2 billion stake in Japanese conglomerate\u00a0SoftBank<\/a>\u00a0and a $1 billion stake in mining concern\u00a0Anglo American<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Activist\u00a0hedge fund\u00a0Elliott\u00a0Management has amassed a $1.9 billion stake in\u00a0Southwest Airlines\u00a0and plans to push for leadership\u00a0changes at the airline that has lagged big rivals. The stake makes Elliott one of Southwest\u2019s largest shareholders, according to FactSet. Shares of Southwest were up 7% in premarket trading Monday. The company had a market capitalization of $16.6 billion as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[4145,2031,1238,2305,4127,1159,1395,8577,5222,2146,2793],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_nbcnews-fp-1200-630,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2024-04\/240407-southwest-airlines-plane-vl-256p-15bfd2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo5.dedicatedhost247.com\/zexo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}