Southwest Airlines LUVs Students

By: Laurel Moffat - Communications Specialist

If you’re flying into or out of Austin, Dallas, or Oklahoma City today, you may see some Southwest peeps alongside some cheerleaders and mascots from various universities.  Why, you ask?  The sun is setting on summer, and football season is firing up.  It’s back to school time, and we’re handing out free laundry bags to students who are making the trek home for the Labor Day weekend AND offering a few lucky college students the chance to win roundtrip tickets at each airport.  We’re showing the LUV to students who are readjusting to college life and to reassure them home is just a plane ride away.

In Dallas, we’ve teamed up with the TCU Horned Frogs to show school pride.  Um, is that Super Frog?  That princess sure turned into a good-looking frog!

In Austin, we’re joined with some University of Texas at Austin students who have A LOT of spirit going on—Hook ‘em Horns!

In Oklahoma City, Boomer is making an appearance and just might be surprising a student with a roundtrip ticket!  Boomer Sooner!

We’ve got spirit, yes we do, we’ve got spirit how ‘bout you??  Tell us who you’re rooting for this weekend!

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Tags: college football Laurel Moffat Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines LUVs Students was written on Sep 03,2010 at 01:57pm and posted in the categories Customers and Nutty stuff

Flashback Fridays--Southwest Airlines' Early San Antonio Days

By: Brian Lusk - Manager of Communications

So far in these weekly series looking back at Southwest Airline’s history, we have devoted a lot of space to Dallas Love Field.  That’s understandable because our Headquarters is here and this was our original Crew and Maintenance base.  Most of the photos were taken here because of that.  However, we have two other cities—Houston and San Antonio—that complete the “Texas Triangle” of original cities.  I’ve found almost zero early photos of our first Houston operation at Intercontinental, but this week, I’d thought we would look at a few I found from San Antonio.

 

If Dallas has always been our operational home, San Antonio is the place Southwest was born.  Our two Founders, Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, lived there and met there.  Herb was a San Antonio lawyer who helped Rollin liquidate his small airline that was serving the Rio Grande Valley from San Antonio.  Herb’s legal secretary in San Antonio was our President Emeritus Colleen Barrett.  Along the way, and most of it in the bar at the St. Anthony Hotel, the idea for Southwest was born.  If that weren’t enough by itself, San Antonio has produced a large share of our Leadership from Herb and Colleen to our current Chairman, President, and CEO, Gary Kelly.  Ron Ricks, our Executive Vice President Corporate Services and former CEO, Jim Parker all have San Antonio ties.  That’s the tip of the San Antonio “iceberg” at Southwest.

So what did the San Antonio facility look like shortly after Herb and Rollin’s baby took to the sky?  In our archives, I found three very early photos of the airport’s interior.  The first one above illustrates how folks traveled in the early 70s.  Note the Customer with the hat, and look at all the women carrying makeup cases.  It appears there is a businesswoman with her briefcase in the center of the photo, so things were changing.  If you look closely you can see one of the cash register that dispensed tickets.

 

The ticket counter was located in the original terminal (which is now called Terminal Two), and this side view of our counter shows just how small it really was.  Look carefully because there is no ticket counter to the side of ours.  Am I right in remembering that it was located away from those belonging to the other airlines?  It’s kind of hard to read, given the size limitations we have for photos here, but the signs behind the counter are advertising a fare sale to Dallas.

The gate area above was rather Spartan, and again, if I remember correctly, it had no windows.  You walked through a door in the wall to enter the jetbridge.  The lady standing by herself is giving a suspicious look to the photographer. 

San Antonio has a rich history of individuality and independence.  After all, it is the site of the Alamo where Texans rebelled against the established order.  It really isn’t surprising that an airline founded and led by San Antonians would be unique and rebellious.

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Tags: Brian Lusk Flashback Fridays Southwest Airlines Southwest History

Flashback Fridays--Southwest Airlines' Early San Antonio Days was written on Sep 03,2010 at 09:54am and posted in the categories Airports

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES AND PETA TEAM UP TO RESCUE GULF DOGS AND CATS

By: LindseyPollard-Post - Research Specialist--The PETA Foundation

This guest post is from Lindsay Pollard-Post, a Research Specialist with the PETA foundation. 

Birds, turtles, and fish aren’t the only animal victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Countless cats’ and dogs’ lives were also turned upside down when Gulf-area residents lost their jobs or left the area and surrendered their animal companions to shelters. But thanks to Southwest Airlines, who generously flew volunteers to Louisiana free of charge, PETA was able to give nearly 50 dogs and 30 cats from severely crowded Gulf-area shelters a second chance at life.

In the first round of rescues, PETA volunteers, along with PETA honorary director Pamela Anderson, walked and gave treats to the dogs before loading them into a comfortable, air-conditioned RV for the drive to PETA’s Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. Pamela—who paid for all of the dogs' local adoption, spay or neuter surgery, and flea treatment costs—fell in love with two of the dogs and adopted them on the spot! The rest of the dogs arrived safely in Norfolk, where eager families were ready to give them permanent, loving homes or to foster them while they recuperated.

Less than a week later, PETA volunteers were back aboard Southwest Airline heading to Louisiana to rescue nearly 30 "special needs" cats who were suffering from illnesses, injuries, or chronic stress from spending many years in a shelter, waiting for a home. Pamela funded veterinary care for the cats—one of whom had a misshapen face and another who was missing part of a leg. Two desperate dogs—Sandy, a Labrador retriever mix with a flea allergy, and Cassie, a pug mix—also hitched a ride with the cats to Norfolk and were transferred to the Washington Animal Rescue League's shelter in Washington, D.C. for adoption.

Some of these cats are already settling into their new homes, but others still need a special person to give them a second chance. Virginia residents with exemplary veterinary references and quiet households who are interested in adopting one (or two!) of these hard-luck cats are encouraged to visit PETA.org [http://www.peta.org/] to fill out an application.

We can all take action to end the cat and dog homelessness crisis by having our animals spayed or neutered, encouraging and helping others to do the same, and always adopting our animal companions from shelters. Together, we can make a difference!

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Tags: Lindsay Pollard-Post PETA Share the Spirit Southwest Airlines

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES AND PETA TEAM UP TO RESCUE GULF DOGS AND CATS was written on Sep 03,2010 at 07:34am and posted in the categories Southwest Culture

New Features for southwest.com

By: Kristen Francis - Products Guru for southwest.com, Online Marketing

You’ve heard the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” well whoever said that makes a good point: it takes time and patience to build something significant.  In the past two years, we’ve made several significant changes to southwest.com, such as redesigning our Air Booking functionality, a new home page, site navigation, and introducing Travel Guide, our online travel community.  Today, we are launching a new compilation of enhancements to southwest.com that you, our Customers, are sure to love….mainly because most of them were requested by you.   In efforts to maintain the best shopping experience for you, these new enhancements will be introduced slowly and you may not see all of these functions today.  

A few of the highlights include:

• Improved car & hotel booking paths, including new features such as hotel maps and advanced filtering
• New shopping cart functionality, which allows you to purchase Air + Hotel + Car if you choose, all at one time
• New tool allowing you to easily access your flight information:  Lookup by Confirmation Number or Credit Card
• New, easy way to lookup your Rapid Rewards/Account Number
• Improved access to information (searchable FAQs, improved site search, more organized content, and more)

Don’t let the name fool you.   Just because we are Southwest Airlines, doesn’t mean that our mission to build a full-service travel solution for you is based solely on our low fares and Bags Fly Free®*.   We have suite deals on over 40,000 hotels, and deals that drive savings on  car rentals, all with our one-stop-shop on southwest.com.   Plus, if you are a Rapid Rewards Member, you can earn credit towards a free flight by selecting one of our many car and hotel Partners. 

To celebrate, we are extending awesome deals - like up to 50% off hotel stays in our top cities and up to 5X Rapid Reward credits with our car Partners.   You may be thinking to yourself…”But I can go anywhere online for travel deals like these…”  Not so fast!  Remember, if you want to fly on one of our beautiful birds, southwest.com is the only site where you’ll find our low fares and Legendary Customer Service.  So if our fares are nowhere else online and we’ll guarantee low rates on cars and exclusive rates on hotels, why would you go anywhere else?  Our award-winning web site accounts for more than 80 percent of all Southwest Airlines bookings so take a look around the store and see what you think.   You know that other saying, “When in Rome....”

*First and second checked bags. Baggage weight and size limits apply.

 

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Tags: Kristen Francis Southwest Airlines southwest.com

New Features for southwest.com was written on Sep 02,2010 at 02:29pm and posted in the categories Customers and Under the hood

Time Flies With EarlyBird Check-In™

By: Kristen Francis - Products Guru for southwest.com, Online Marketing

It’s hard to believe a year has already flown by since we introduced EarlyBird Check-In. If you’ve purchased a flight on southwest.com, visited our homepage, or receive our weekly Click ‘n Save e-mails, you’ve probably seen and heard a lot about this popular product. Customers appreciate the extra convenience that EarlyBird Check-In provides like automatic advanced check-in, allowing for an improved seat selection along with earlier access to overhead storage. In their own words, here’s what our Customers have been saying about their EarlyBird Check-In experiences:

“I'm all about the early bird check-in. I've been using it pretty regularly and it makes life so much easier.”

“I like to get onboard and be able to pick a better seat with my bag in the storage over me.”

“If you do pay for it you’re going to feel confident that you don’t have to rearrange your day. Like, if I’m in a meeting I don’t have to log online to print out my boarding pass.”

“Peace of mind for only $10”

With EarlyBird Check-In, available for $10 each way added to your reservation, we will take care of check-in for you.  We’ll also assign your boarding position before general boardings becomes available, allowing you to conveniently print your boarding pass anytime within 24 hours of your flight’s departure.   And don’t forget, if you’re in a hurry, you can always print your boarding pass on-the-go at one of our airport kiosks. 

EarlyBird Check-In Customers have the opportunity to board immediately following the limited number of passengers in the Business Select and A-list groups.  Once you’ve entered the plane, the jumpstart on your boarding position will come in handy once again, allowing you earlier access to seat selection and overhead storage space to stow your bag.

You can buy EarlyBird Check-In on southwest.com, or if you have a smartphone, add it to your existing reservation using our mobile site or our iPhone® App.  In today’s fast-paced world, a little extra convenience goes a long way.    So give EarlyBird Check-In a try the next time you fly.    Visit southwest.com/earlybird.

 

 

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Tags: EarlyBird Kristen Francis Southwest Airlines

Time Flies With EarlyBird Check-In™ was written on Sep 02,2010 at 10:41am and posted in the categories Airports and Customers and Flying

Inside Spirit’s September Issue

By: Jay Heinrichs - Editorial Director Southwest Airlines Spirit

Depending on your philosophy of life, the guy on the cover is either one of the luckiest men in America, or the least lucky. It says a lot about Patrick Waller that he puts himself in the first category. After 16 years of wrongful imprisonment, DNA evidence set the man free. How would you feel?

The theme of this issue, Second Chances, explores new leases on life. In times like these, we need to be reminded that America is the land of try, try again.

I keep hearing from readers who say they’re surprised by the sorts of stories we do in Southwest’s inflight magazine. Where are the celebrities gushing about restaurants? After all, our last few covers showed a service dog, a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, a new American citizen, and an exploding sandwich.

Actually, we do put celebs on the cover now and then. (The mail on Brad Paisley reminded us of how “fan” comes from the word “fanatic.”) But we find people like Patrick Waller at least as interesting.

And not just him. Also a well-to-do woman from Houston who finds a new life in Marfa, Texas. Also Senior Editor Mike Darling’s Uncle Sam, who’s fighting a joyous battle against multiple forms of cancer. Also a guy who misses a chance to connect on a plane with the love of his life, and then gets another chance. Also Nelson Mandela, Lance Armstrong, Steve Jobs, and Tina Turner—comeback champions, every one. You’ll find them all in this issue.

I like to tell writers that our best stories make people laugh, then cry, then hug the stranger in the next seat. (Being an untouchy-feely New Englander, though, I kind of hope my seatmate hugs the person on the other side.) When so much of the media devotes itself to scaring its audiences, demonizing enemies, and fetishizing celebrities, we’d like to offer a temporary oasis from all that. One that makes you feel good about humanity for a while.

Sort of the way a certain airline does it.

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Tags: Jay Heinrichs Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine

Inside Spirit’s September Issue was written on Sep 02,2010 at 07:59am and posted in the categories Customers and Flying

Lessons Learned and Lessons Taught

By: Steve Heaser - Sr. Multimedia Specialist

On this episode of Red Belly Radio, I play more of the interview with our own President Emeritus, Colleen Barrett. Today, Colleen talks about Customer Relations and some of her lessons learned and lessons taught. This is a continuation of an interview that was first released on June 24. I hope you will give it a listen.

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Tags: Colleen Barrett Jim Rupell President Emeritus

Lessons Learned and Lessons Taught was written on Sep 01,2010 at 09:57pm and posted in the categories Customers

Back to School, My Two Best Schoolyears...Ever

By: Brian Lusk - Manager of Communications

If you are of college age, you probably are getting ready to head back to school.  Or maybe you are a parent getting your kids ready for another school year.  This time of year, Southwest Airlines acts like a big blue and red school bus taking college students back to their campuses.  You are also creating memories that will be important to you when you are an old codger like me.

Isn’t it funny how little things can transport you back to an earlier time?  This weekend I was listening to XM Sirrus’s 70s channel, and they were replaying Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 show from the last week of August, 1971.  The songs were the anthems of my youth, and I got to thinking about where I was when this show was airing live.

I was in Dallas, and a few weeks after the original show ran, I would begin my sophomore year at Southern Methodist University.  Little did I know that the year would be one of my two best school years ever.  The first was sixth grade in Room 2 at Center Street Elementary in El Segundo, California—next to Los Angeles International.  My family had moved there the previous year, and in fifth grade I was pretty much an outsider from Texas.  By my sixth grade year, I was an accepted part of the class.  (I even found other aviation geeks)  It was a tumultuous, fast-paced, emotional, and wonderful year.  Probably the high point of the year was a week away at Outdoor School in the mountains east of Los Angeles.  I still remember the night hike when the full moon lit the landscape like a street lamp.  During the day, our guides took us to see the San Andreas Fault, and they showed us a big crack in the land.  That year, our class even marched en masse to the principal to complain about a substitute teacher.  The Dodgers won the World Series in October, John Kennedy died in November, one of my classmate’s father was a Green Beret in a far off land in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, and The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Whenever I hear one of their early songs like “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” in my mind I am sitting with my classmates David, Ivy, and Martin in our group of four desks there in Room 2.

My sophomore year in college was a blur of self-awareness, and like sixth grade, bonding.  Because I was late to apply for housing on campus, I was assigned to the small former football dorm, Letterman Hall.  Besides holding no more than 100 students, if that many, it was SMU’s first coed dormitory.  This was my first time living away from home, and with the exception of a few short periods, I never returned to the “nest.”  The dorm became a tight-knit community, and in spite of 100 or so single early “twenty somethings” confined to a small area, relationships remained platonic.  It seemed like I was doing something every waking moment (well, except for studying—it wasn’t my best academic year, I’m afraid).  A large chunk of my time was spent as News Director of the campus radio station, KSMU, which used carrier wires to transmit to the dorms.  Like the Deltas from Animal House, we took road trips to Texas Tech and Baylor.  James Taylor, Carole King, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” are the immediate music memories of the year, but I also learned all the lyrics to Don McLean’s megahit “American Pie” under unusual conditions.  But, that’s a whole ‘nother story.

So, those are my two best school years ever.  Both years involved personal growth, bonding, and music.  I can hear a song from the early 70s and tell you what I was doing the first time I heard it.  What was your best school year, and what was the soundtrack of that year?

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Tags: back to school best year Brian Lusk music Southwest Airlines

Back to School, My Two Best Schoolyears...Ever was written on Aug 31,2010 at 08:57am and posted in the categories Nutty stuff

Southwest Airlines One Report: Reducing Our Environmental Impact with Efficent Operations

By: Mike VanDeVen - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

This is the final blog in a series of posts about our new Southwest Airlines One Report ™—a single report on our triple bottomline of Performance, People, and Planet adhering to Global Reporting Initiative standards.

As an airline, being Green isn’t always easy.  Considering that the majority of our carbon footprint is fuel burn, it’s important for Southwest to not only understand our impact on the environment but to grasp what we can do and are doing to minimize it. 

This is what we do – we help people see the world, so it is important that we do everything in our power that our resources and business allow to preserve the natural spaces around us.  Good stewardship is not only the right thing to do as citizens of our planet, but, because our business is giving people access to see the world, we should want to help preserve it.  Our industry has helped make the world accessible - spending the morning in Africa and the evening in Greece or dipping your toe in the Pacific in the morning and back home in Chicago in the evening to tuck your kids into bed.
 
If we exist to make the world a smaller place—we need to protect it, which makes the Green focus so important for us at Southwest and why we put a Green filter on business decisions.  How are we operating with a Green filter?  All of our Boeing 737-700 aircraft are equipped with winglets, and we continue to add additional winglets to our 737-300 aircraft.  With an approximate 2.5 to 3 percent in fuel consumption savings, these winglet installations equated to an annual fuel savings of more than 33 million gallons just in 2009.

We also continued our $175 million, six-year initiative to implement Required Navigation Performance (RNP) systemwide.  RNP procedures are designed to conserve fuel, improve safety, and reduce carbon emissions, while simultaneously taking advantage of the high-performance characteristics that exist in an airline’s fleet.  This flight efficiency improvement saved us 4.8 million gallons alone in 2009.  It’s exciting to see us become one of the leading carriers in the industry today with the expectation of being the first major U.S. airline to have RNP sytemwide.
 
On the ground, we are proactively acting by converting our ground support equipment (GSE), equipment like tugs and baggage carts, to cleaner-burning technologies, such as electricity, before state or federal emission reduction regulations even require us to do so.  With more than 1,000 pieces of equipment in our GSE fleet, we have the industry-leading program using this greener technology, which allowed us to save about 460,000 gallons of fuel and reduced emissions by approximately 4,580 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2009.  In other words, this would be like removing 876 cars from the road.
 
The numbers speak for themselves.  In 2009,  we saved 8.5 million gallons of jet fuel beyond our already aggressive conservation program, we recycled 210,000 pounds of batteries, we recovered 5.7 billion British thermal units of energy from used oil, filters, and liquid and solid paint, and we recycled 11,000 fluorescent bulbs from facilities and our aircraft.

We know environmental decisions also make good business sense, so it’s in our DNA to take responsibility, be efficient, and continue to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint by operating with a Green filter.  To read more about our environmental efforts in the Southwest Airlines One Report™ CLICK HERE.

 

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Tags: Green Mike VanDeVen One Report Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines One Report: Reducing Our Environmental Impact with Efficent Operations was written on Aug 30,2010 at 03:38pm and posted in the categories Under the hood

Southwest Airlines Helps Next Generation Leaders

By: Lidia S. Martinez - Manager Community Affairs and Grassroots

I hope you are interested in some great information about one of the strategic alliances that Southwest Airlines has with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI).  CHCI is the premier Hispanic non-profit and non-partisan 501(c)(3) leadership development organization in the country, whose mission is to Develop the Next Generation of Latino Leaders. Southwest Airlines is the official airline of their leadership development programs, and I have the pleasure of also serving on the CHCI Board with some Hispanic Members of Congress.

CHCI programs are nationally recognized and have successfully developed effective Hispanic leaders in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, as embodied by the CHCI Alumni Association.

The 2010 Summer Congressional Internship Program is made up of 30 students from across the country.  Some characteristics of the class are:

• They come from 15 states and Puerto Rico
• They come from 16 different academic backgrounds – ranging from Anthropology to International Politics to Structural Engineering
• They come from 25 different academic institutions (one attends community college)
• 57% of them are the first ones in their family to go to college
• 76% of them come household incomes of less than $45,000  
• The interns have studies in sixteen different majors
• The interns worked in the offices of 4 senators and 23 representatives

These students worked on Capitol Hill for eight weeks and participated in numerous activities during their time in Washington DC.  Below are some of the highlights from their experience:

• They were involved in a community service build with Habitat for Humanity
• They had a discussion with Judy Woodruff of Public Broadcasting Service on the role of the media
• They met with members of the Hispanic Lobbyist Association and Congressional Hispanic Staffers Association
• They had media training with Lori Montenegro from Telemundo
• They had coalition building events with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and The Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies

CHCI’s Internship Blog Contest:

Southwest Airlines also sponsors the intern blog contest, which provides the winner a round trip ticket! This summer’s interns shared their Washington, D.C. experience through weekly blogs that discussed their personal and professional encounters and talked about policy issues and leadership.  Below are some excerpts from the CHCI Intern’s blogs:

Samuel Gomez from Acton, Massachusetts reflects on the Ropes Course challenge during Orientation Week: We glance around at each other in astonishment. At that moment, we realize how resourceful and determined we really are. At that moment, we realize that if we work together, we can overcome any obstacle. This is only the beginning.

Felipe Hernandez from Paramount, California writes about his first week working on the hill and how he faces obstacles: The only way that I could overcome these challenges was by directly confronting them.  I never back down and I am not afraid to fail because as my Congresswoman said, ‘When you fail that is a success because you learn how not to do it and you are closer to achieving your goal.’

Eduardo Gonzalez from Laredo, Texas writes about how the CHCI internship influenced him: I return with enthusiasm, with joy and with an eye focused in the future; a future with many opportunities, many doors, many options from where to choose from.  I return to encourage young people not only dream, but to plan. Not only to plan, but to act. Not only to act, but to apply.

To read all of their blog posts and to truly see how we at Southwest Airlines are making a tremendous difference in the ability of these young individuals to participate in this once in a lifetime experience, please visit HERE.  

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Tags: CHCI Hispanic Leadership Leadership Development Lidia Martinez Share the Spirit Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines Helps Next Generation Leaders was written on Aug 30,2010 at 08:27am and posted in the categories Southwest Culture