The
white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is
no stopping in a red zone.
Airline employees and avgeeks
immediately recognize that line from the 1980 movie Airplane. The airport scenes
were shot at TWA’s Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International (LAX), and the sign
above is familiar to anyone who has seen the movie. A little known fact is that when... read more
Blog Alumni
Brian Lusk
Of all our bloggers, I am probably the oldest, but I don’t feel my age. I was born in 1952, just a couple of blocks from the Santa Fe Railway’s main transcontinental line in Clovis, New Mexico to an airline father, so transportation (planes and trains) got in my blood at an early age. As a child, my fondest memories are spending days at work with my dad on the ramp in Amarillo, Texas and on the old observation deck at Dallas Love Field. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in Dallas as a journalism major, I got my first airline job with Delta in 1976. During my time at Delta, I worked at Dallas/Fort Worth (during three separate occasions), Detroit, Oakland, Atlanta (at the old terminal), Portland, Oregon, Paris Orly, and Dayton, Ohio. My 18½ years with Delta were split between ramp/operations and ticket counter/gates. I joined Southwest (thankfully!) in 1995, as a Reservations Sales Agent, but then I moved to the communications group in the Executive Office, where. I corresponded with our Customers on a wide variety of topics, but I also got to work on different projects like this blog. About five years ago I moved into the Communication & Strategic Outreach Department and worked primarily in our social media area. Then in 2011, I got my dream job as Southwest's Corporate Historian. I enjoy sharing and preserving Southwest's past with our Employees and the public at large.
Fun Facts
Languages
English and Blog
Hobbies
Aviation and Railroading
Pets
My basset, Annabelle
High School
El Segundo High School, El Segundo, Ca and WT White in Dallas
College
Southern Methodist
Favorite Sports Teams
Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars, Dallas Mavs, SMU, Cowboys
Favorite Travel Destinations
Scotland
Your Favorite Southwest Story
The current week's Flashback Fridays
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Recent Activity Posts
Flashback Fridays: California Girls Meet "Airplane" at Los Angeles International
By: Brian Lusk 
Feb 10 2012
The
white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is
no stopping in a red zone.
Airline employees and avgeeks
immediately recognize that line from the 1980 movie Airplane. The airport scenes
were shot at TWA’s Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International (LAX), and the sign
above is familiar to anyone who has seen the movie. A little known fact is that when... read more
Flash Forward: The Continued Progress of Our First 737-800
By: Brian Lusk
Feb 03 2012
In our last installment, the
fuselage of our first 737-800 was being loaded on a rail car for the journey
from Wichita to the Boeing assembly plant in Renton, Washington. Thanks to these great photos from our friends
at Boeing, we can check in on the progress of what will become N8301J. Fellow avgeeks will note that the -800s carry
a four-digit N-number, which is a departure from our... read more
Flashback Fridays: Southwest Airlines’ Interiors over the Years
By: Brian Lusk
Feb 03 2012
Our new Evolve interior with its
environmentally friendly materials and Customer-friendly personal space was set
to make its debut this week. To mark the
occasion, I thought it might be interesting to go back through the years and
look at our various aircraft interiors.
The photo above represents one of
our earliest interiors, and the Flight Attendant is one of our Originals,... read more
Flash Forward: The Birth of our first Dash 800
By: Brian Lusk
Jan 27 2012
Normally, I write about the past, but this post is about history in the making. As a certified “av geek,” one of the things that fascinates me about airplane construction is how a bunch of metal comes together to form an airliner. Dara Schmidt, our Boeing Representative, has been supplying us “av geek caviar” with a series of photos showing our first 737-800 under construction.... read more
Flashback Fridays: Off to the Desert
By: Brian Lusk
Jan 27 2012
Thirty years ago, Southwest Airlines
followed Horace Greely’s advice of “Go west, young man,” when we opened San
Diego, Phoenix, and Las Vegas on January 31, 1982. I had hoped to include some early photos from
San Diego this week, but the ones I thought I had found were for Phoenix. I will keep looking, but in the meantime, we
have some interesting photos from our early days in the... read more
Flashback Fridays: Closing the Texas Triangle and the Power of Three
By: Brian Lusk
Jan 20 2012
Three may just be the most important
number in our society. We see it
everywhere. Each side of the ancient pyramids forms a
triangle. It’s in our fairy tales with
the three little pigs, the three bears, and Aladdin’s three wishes. How many jokes have you heard that start with
a variation of a "blonde, a brunette, and a redhead,” an "Englishman, an
Irishman, and a Scotsman... read more
Flashback Fridays: Early All-Color Looks At Some of Our Stations
By: Brian Lusk
Jan 13 2012
Even in the late 1970s, color photos
were somewhat of a rarity, especially in media usage. Until USA
Today came along, most newspapers used black and white photos
exclusively. That also held true for many
magazines because the color printing process was so expensive. That’s why a big portion of the photos in our archives
from our first ten or so years are in black and white.... read more
A Quick Flashback Fridays Followup with Some Amazing News
By: Brian Lusk
Jan 10 2012
In last Friday's Flashback post, I shared a photo of
Rollin King that was taken in the cockpit during a flight of Boeing’s 737 demonstrator,
N737Q. I shared my post with the good
folks at Boeing, and their Corporate Historian, Michael Lombardi, did some
digging through their files. He found
the original Boeing negative and sent this cleaned up digital version that clearly
shows the... read more
Flashback Fridays: A New Year and Some Significant Photos
By: Brian Lusk
Jan 06 2012
The most exciting part about my job
is opening a drawer or a file and finding gems like the ones I am sharing
today. Over the Holiday break, I found
some interesting photos of our early years, and many of them go back to a time before
we had even flown our first flight.
We start with what could be a
potentially important historic photo. Rollin
King, who along with Herb... read more
Flashback Fridays: The Ghosts of Southwest Christmases Past, Present, and Future
By: Brian Lusk
Dec 23 2011
Blame (or credit) this post on Bill Murray and Scrooged. I was looking for some photos that I might
use for a Holiday issue of Flashback Fridays, and I thought of his modern
version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas
Carol. Most traditional versions of that work
are too scary to parody, especially with their versions of the Ghost of Christmas Future. Well, the Mr. Magoo version isn... read more
Recent Activity Luvs
Captain Joe Saves the Day
By: Joe Gautille 
Mar 24 2011
There is always a lot
happening in the jetway during Passenger Boarding and my recent HOU-SAT flight was no
exception. I like to stand near the main cabin door to say hello to our Passengers, answer their questions, and welcome them aboard. During this particular flight, the quiet of the
jetway was shattered by a high-pitched scream from a
small boy who was not at all happy about getting on... read more
Flashback Fridays: New Orleans and All That Jazz
By: Brian Lusk
Mar 11 2011
This weekend, Southwest Airlines
opens our 70th and 71st cities in Greenville/Spartanburg
and Charleston. I think that’s amazing
because, for our first seven years, we were prohibited from flying beyond the
borders of Texas. We were founded as a
Texas intrastate airline to avoid onerous federal regulations on pricing and
routes. PSA and Air California enjoyed a
similar... read more
Dish Trip #3: Pittsburgh
Mar 07 2011
Download Some Southwest Spirit
By: Lauren Kraft 
Jan 27 2011
With the launch of our newly redesigned Nuts About Southwest blog comes some great new features including enhanced functionality, social connectivity, and excited new Bloggers. Those that are truly NUTS about anything and everything Southwest will love the new Downloads feature that lets you show off your SOUTHWEST SPIRIT and keeps you connected to our best deals and services.
If you’re as... read more
Celebrating the Southwest Rink at Skyline Park: Just 4 Days Left to Lace Up Your Skates
By: Tami Door 
Jan 27 2011
This winter, Southwest Airlines teamed up with the Downtown Denver Partnership (DDP) to restore one of Denver’s favorite traditions by bringing back an outdoor ice rink to Downtown Denver. Tami Door serves as President and CEO of the DDP, and she shares with us her unique insight into the success of the Southwest Rink at Skyline Park in her blog post below.
Linda Rutherford,... read more
Southwest Airlines to the Extreme!
By: Ashley Dillon 
Jan 26 2011
Southwest Airlines is proud to be a part of one of the most heart-warming, positive shows on television, ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. In our seven years as a partner, we’ve done everything from shipping the Designers’ hard-to-find items through our Cargo department, helping design an authentic “airplane room” for a boy who loved aviation, sending a bunch of Employees to New Orleans to... read more
Shaving for Success: The Saga of Ruppel's 'Stache
By: Whitney Bartels 
Jan 26 2011
Are We Crazy? No, Just Even More Nuts!
By: Brooks Thomas 
Jan 21 2011
Come Monday, don’t be confused. Nuts About Southwest is getting a facelift.
Monday – 7:37a.m. Central Standard Time. Coincidence? I think not.
Let's get our upcoming downtime issues out of the way first – our precious blog (and my livelihood) won’t be operable this weekend, due to the upgrade. The blog will return - you guessed it - at 7:37a.m. CST on Monday. Have I said that enough?
We've... read more
Suits and Seats
By: Steve Heaser 
Dec 09 2009
We enjoy a lot of Freedoms at Southwest Airlines and this episode of Red Belly Radio is about two of them. We have a program called “A day in the field” and I interview a young lady who learned first-hand how podcasts are made. I also talked with a Finance Employee who decorated his cube with Christmas lights and airline memorabilia including a row of seats off one of our aircraft! To top it off... read more
Phone It In…It’s On!
By: Steve Heaser
Sep 02 2009
We’ve got another round of “It’s On” ads coming out this weekend, and this episode of Red Belly Radio is about an "It’s On” contest we held just for our Employees. As you can imagine, we got a variety of entries, and some of the more notable ones are on this week’s Red Belly Radio.
read more
Latest LUV Mail
From: Cynthia Moynihan
Tampa,Florida
An Act of Kindness
May 20 2013
Going to an airport and getting on a plane and traveling to
unfamiliar territory takes on a whole new meaning when one...
