> In particular, Southwest does not sell through aggregators at all
...they sell through aggregators, just not to the general public. For business travel they pretty much have to, otherwise they'll miss out on the market (large companies usually requiring their employees to book business travel through a central agency).
> Most of their travel traffic is from the leisure segment anyway, so them not getting business traffic isn't the end of the world
This. Southwest (and the other LCCs) can't really compete with the 'kickbacks' provided by traditional carriers. If you're responsible for a lot of corporate travel, or you do a lot of corporate travel yourself, carriers like AA effectively make it so you never have to buy a personal ticket, and get upgraded to a higher level of service on many of your flights.
...they sell through aggregators, just not to the general public. For business travel they pretty much have to, otherwise they'll miss out on the market (large companies usually requiring their employees to book business travel through a central agency).