"Southwest [Airlines'] change in strategy, especially for the corporate market, of being able to get seat assignments, of having potential upgrade possibilities, I think has helped them in the survey," Partnership Travel Consulting chief strategy officer Bob Brindley said.
The carrier in January changed its boarding process and launched assigned seating. It also has added extra-legroom seating, and airport lounges in partnership with branded credit card partner Chase are in the works.
"The lift across the board in the survey results reflects that corporate buyers like what they're seeing coming out of Southwest, out of Southwest Business, and their travelers do, too," Southwest VP of sales Aileen Furlong said. "Last year, the changes we were talking about were more conceptual than actual. If you look at how 2026 played out, we delivered what we said, and we did it very seamlessly. … Not only are our changes resonating with our current customers, but they're also attracting new customers."
The three categories in which Southwest took the top rating were in "value of your relationship with account managers and sales reps" at 4.42, "flexibility in meeting pricing and contract negotiation" at 4.32 and "overall price value" at 3.95.
"The changes that [Southwest] made must have absolutely impacted overall sentiment, which is exciting to see," KesselRun VP of program management Krissy Herman said. "We talked the past couple of years about how they were really pouring into their account managers, and the fact that they overtook Delta on that is wild to me. I think it's a true testament to the effort that they're making in that space."
"My heart leapt on that one," Furlong said, referring to account management. "I was really, really pleased and proud to see that we regained the top spot."
The category in which Southwest improved the most was flexibility in meeting pricing and contract negotiation, up 0.26 points.
"I was really pleased to see that positive reaction because we've been investing and because of the efforts that we've been putting into the groups and meeting space overall," Furlong said. "We streamlined some of the processes, and we offered a little bit more in terms of flexibility and self-service. … We included a lot of new things—seat maps, self-servicing seat assignment for meetings customers, prepaid bag options, reporting, things that I feel really helped our meetings customers or any customer successfully work with us and navigate our changes."
Still to come is Southwest's Business Priority product, announced in August and rolling out at the beginning of next year, Furlong said.