Southwest starting fee for changing reservations ?

Reported in our newspaper recently that this was on the horizon per SWA.
I hoped it wouldn't come to pass.

I just changed, same flights/day/times, and I think they took $4 per from our "unused funds".

I'm not sure, might have been some other "fee".

Anybody else seen this happen yet? Hope I'm wrong.

BTW, this is the 3rd change I've made for this trip when fare dropped...might have something to do with it.

$4 sounds like a passenger facility charge, did your routing change?

In January, I posted here about how Southwest seems to be contemplating more fees, based on a USAToday story:

"There are no plans to charge for bags in 2013," Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said Thursday (Jan. 24) when asked about that during an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" program.

"Never say never," Kelly added, continuing by saying: "The customers will tell us whether they would prefer to have extra fees or whether they would prefer to have everything bundled."

Story in USAToday

Non-stop both ways, same reservation as before.

If you compare your receipts, it should be apparent why the post-change price was $4 more. Tell us what you find.

I will do that.

However, I'm thinking (always dangerous at my age) that the SWA comment in the newspiece published in our local paper (burried in the business section) said something about the cost to SWA of reservation changes which of course they haven't charged for to date. And which they make so easy to do on their web site.

Again, in the article, charging for changing was "under consideration", which to me translates into "coming soon." I'm thinking it said something about changes made within a certain time frame, like closer to the date of the trip. My flight isn't until mid May, and I started this in February.

Since most airlines charge $50 to $150 for changes I doubt if SWA implement a $4 charge for changes. That sounds like chump change. Besides it would be common knowledge if SWA had implemented any kind of new fee. SWA is probably the most profitable airline going and the main reasons are no checked baggage charges and no change fees. If they were to shoot themselves in the foot like CET has done with the constant bragging about no resort fees and then suddenly instituting resort fees "by customer demand" I would be shocked.