LUV Stories: Unexpected Thank You

By: Bob Hurst - Senior Analyst Technology

One of the many ways we keep our Southwest Culture and SPIRIT alive is by telling, and re-telling, stories of the events that have defined us as a Company. There are many venues for telling such stories.

• FLY classes (Freedom, LUV & You) that all new Employees go through
• Rocking Chair events where a group of longtime Employees sit around (in rocking chairs) and talk about their lives at Southwest
• Halloween skits, which almost always lightheartedly relive events from long ago, and not so long ago (And wait 'til you see some of the video from a Southwest Halloween. We go completely Nuts for Halloween.)
• A fantastic Puppet Show that our People Department presents at special New Hire luncheons (I’ll have to show you some of that one of these days.)
• And just about any gathering of two or more current or former Southwest Employees

You probably already know about many of the stories that made headlines.

• Our years of court battles just to get the right to fly
• The $13 Fare War in 1973 when we proclaimed “Nobody’s Going to Shoot Southwest Airlines Out of the Sky for a Lousy $13″ (Winning that confrontation with Braniff led to our first profitability.)
• Malice in Dallas, when Herb saved lots of money and got a ton of free publicity by arm wrestling for the rights to the “Just Plane Smart” slogan
• And most recently, our successful Wright is Wrong campaign to lift the outdated Wright Amendment restrictions at Love Field

But there are hundreds … thousands … of smaller, more-personal stories inside Southwest that are just as important to our Culture and SPIRIT, and I recently became aware of another venue where many of these stories live and thrive.

There is a group of retired Employees who meets about once a quarter at The Landing (our headquarters cafeteria). I heard they used to call themselves Old LUVers, but that was quickly changed to just LUVers. They come from all over the United States just to be together for a few hours … to catch up on what’s new and reminisce about old times. So I asked them if I could set up my camcorder, record their LUV Stories, and share them with YOU!

This first story is from Buddy Mitchell, Southwest Employee #946, retired. It illustrates how important a simple “thank you” can be. It can be something that makes a difference forever!

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LUV Stories: Unexpected Thank You was written on Oct 08,2007 at 07:07am and posted in the categories Southwest Culture and Working at Southwest

LUV Rations Delivery

By: Bob Hurst - Senior Analyst Technology

In a previous blog by Shelley Logan,you've heard about our efforts and events surrounding this past 4th of July. One of those events was called LUV Rations. It focused on collecting supplies for our brave soldiers in Iraq and other far away locations and for the children in those countries who our soldiers LUV so much.

We ended up gathering enough supplies for more than a thousand goodie bags  and we packed them in boxes, each containing personal post cards from Employees, Family Members, and Friends of Southwest.

This video shows the official delivery of the boxes to our military, and you’ll notice that most of the people who turned out for the event were dressed in red. That’s because it was on Friday, and we dress in red to show our support for our military every Friday. You also might notice that many of our Employees brought their children to work with them for the event.

The video pretty much speaks for itself, but this is one of the times I really wish you could watch the original HD version of the video. If you look very carefully, you’ll see a Southwest Airlines plane appearing to hover over the trucks as they turn onto the road that parallels the Love Field runway. In the HD version, you can see the bright landing lights and the colors of the plane, but in this version, it’s just a gray blur. So … when you watch, use your imagination.

And if you get a lump in your throat as you watch, join the club!

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LUV Rations Delivery was written on Oct 02,2007 at 06:16am and posted in the categories Southwest Culture and Working at Southwest

Cleaning Planes and Feeding Las Vegas

By: Bob Hurst - Senior Analyst Technology

A poster on my previous blog entry asked ”What exactly does the Corporate Culture Committee do?”

Well ... the Corporate Culture Committee (CCC) is a mostly-volunteer group of Employees (and retired Employees) from every city in our system who travel around our 64-city network putting on events to let our Employees and Customers (Passengers) know how much we appreciate them. These events can include anything from cooking burgers for our Ground Ops folks to providing chair massages for Customers waiting at our gates. It's a lot of fun and really helps you keep in touch with what's going on in the field . The video above comes from two such events.

The first minute or so of the video is from a visit to our HOU (Houston) Maintenance Base. We were there (in shifts) from early afternoon through mid-morning the next day, so we could visit with all three shifts, and we served barbecue with all the fixin's pretty much nonstop.

Some time around 3:00 a.m., things were kind of slow for us because that's when the Maintenance guys and gals are really busy getting planes ready for the new day. So, I walked outside with my camcorder and saw the surreal scene you'll see in the video. The bright lights against the black sky, and all the steam and water, seemed to be just begging for some dramatic music and slow motion. It turned out to be a sort of ”faux commercial” celebrating the folks who keep our planes clean.

The remainder of the video is from a Culture event in Las Vegas where we cooked about 2,000 burgers, brats, and hot dogs for our Ground Ops folks. Of course, there were lots of Crews (Pilots & Flight Attendants) coming and going, and we were glad to feed them, too. I think this part of the video really shows how supportive all our Employees are of each other, and how much impromptu FUN we have with each other.

Enjoy the video, and look forward to more soon. There's lots more where this came from!

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Cleaning Planes and Feeding Las Vegas was written on Sep 18,2007 at 08:41am and posted in the categories Southwest Culture