When Brett Snyder, the snarky travel blogger at Cranky Flier, predicted that we’ll someday look back at last Tuesday as the day Southwest Airlines died, I scoffed.

Then I noticed Washington Post travel writer Hannah Sampson’s similar obituary, “RIP. Here lies Southwest Airlines’ free checked bags and open seating.”

The Wall Street Journal did it. So did TheStreet.

So, I double-checked my booking for a work trip Sunday to Boston, wondering if I would be flying on a ghost plane.

Nope. Still alive.

My flight was packed. So was the one at the gate next to mine, and the next. Almost everyone waiting to board had a carry-on bag, those little plastic cubes of underwear and stuff.

Here’s the thing about dead airlines. They don’t get that way by flying lots of people where they want to go with their stuff, and lots of people are willing to put up with lots to get there.

For most of you reading this? Coming or going, that’s BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.

“Despite an occasional hiccup, it’s still going extremely well financially, as well as I can tell,” Ricky Smith said. “You can’t find a community in this country that does not want to have Southwest Airlines present.”

Of course, he said this weeks before revealing he is jumping ship, er, jetliner, from his job as CEO at BWI for a job in Atlanta.

Does he know something we don’t?

Southwest has been going through its own stuff, from computer meltdowns to a shareholder takeover to finding its order of 80 new 737 MAX airplanes showing up 60 short.

In (suit)case you missed it, the Texas-based carrier announced March 11 it will start charging some customers at the end of May for checked bags, ending its old two-bags-fly-free deal. It will be akin to other airlines’ fees, probably about $35 for the first bag and $45 for a second.

Top flyers or those who buy a premium ticket will get two free checked bags. The next level of bestest Southwest buddies gets one free.

Got a Southwest-branded credit card in your wallet? You get one bag on the house, too.

Did Southwest’s new shareholder overlords abandon fee-harried travelers? Even CEO Bob Jordan said the deal was the major reason it is the busiest U.S. airline.

It comes on top of the decision to end cattle call seating later this year and add luxury seating with more legroom.

Cue the obits.

On a hop to Louisville last month, a flight attendant explained the changes this way: “We’ve just gotten so big we can’t do it that way anymore.”

BWI, with or without Smith, has faith she’s right. It had better.

Almost 70% of passengers at the state-owned airport fly Southwest, a huge bet for its future. Another 5,200 people work for the company at BWI.

The Maryland Aviation Administration invested $425 million in the A and B concourses for Southwest. Five new gates, new restrooms, a connector and a better baggage system will start coming online this year, with work wrapping up by summer 2026.

Southwest is returning the favor by building its first Northeast maintenance hangar at BWI, capable of holding three aircraft inside and eight more on an apron outside. That’s more jobs and more flights.

Sure, some flights will be cheaper on other airlines. They’ll offer deals calculated on the cost of Southwest’s checked bags.

But if you can’t get where you want to go from BWI, it’s a moot point for the 27 million passengers who fly through the airport each year.

“We’re expanding, we’re not retrenching,” Smith said.

When he leaves for Atlanta, do you think he’ll fly Southwest?

That flight attendant’s pre-takeoff off patter was true.

Southwest hit the limits of easy growth, but shareholders want the profits to keep flying. They got some last week with a bump in share prices.

In other words, it’s a business. Always was.

Even so, I’m predisposed to be kind to Southwest. I have that credit card in my wallet. We flew to Puerto Rico for my wife’s birthday because we earned a half-off discount with it.

It costs $149 a year. Although the airline is changing the rules here, too — flight credits will now expire — why wouldn’t you want one if BWI is your airport?

On Southwest, where two bags fly free for a few more weeks, I assume all those people with carry-ons don’t check them because they fear losing their underwear.

Or maybe they don’t want to wait around the luggage carousel, a misleading name for the experience because there are no painted horses.

Southwest ranked third among U.S. airlines for reconnecting you with your underwear, losing just .45% of the 130 million bags it schlepped in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The people who compiled those numbers may have been fired, so hold on to them for future reference.

Airlines charge baggage fees for one reason. Money. OK, two. They want more.

Fees bring in more money without raising the base fares people search.

They know you need to bring stuff on your trips. They just want you to bring the least amount possible. Every ounce added to a Boeing 737-800 burns more aviation fuel, and that goes for about $2,000 an hour.

So, if they can raise more revenue and convince you to bring less underwear — yay for their bottom line, if not ours.

And boo for vacation packing.

My wife packs for us. This is because she’s better at it than I am, but also because she wears outfits while I wear T-shirts and khakis.

She’s my hero because she’s gotten us from two bags for a week to one.

One suitcase or two, though, I’m still going to fly Southwest. Where else am I going to go?

They know that. I know that.

Even my underwear knows that. Somebody tell the obit writers.

This column has been updated to correctly describe the flight credit changes and to correct Hannah Sampson's last name.