Southwest Airlines Prides Itself on Being the 'Love Airline'

In February of 1973, The New York Times reported a story out of Texas known as the “$13 war.” It pitted the magisterial Braniff International Airways against a scrappy upstart called Southwest. In essence, Braniff was ticked off because its fares were set by the Civil Aeronautics Board, whereas those of Southwest—which had three planes that flew only in Texas—were not. Braniff’s fare from Dallas to Houston was $26. Southwest charged $13. Southwest had perks, too: a free bottle of liquor for passengers who chose to pay the full $26 fare, for instance, and “love flights” crewed by young female attendants sporting tangerine hot pants. Say what you want, but this sort of maneuvering eventually paid off. Today, Southwest operates 4,000 flights a day to 121 cities and posted $23.8 billion in revenues last year. And while the free liquor and risqué outfits are gone, the fundamentals that originally differentiated the carrier are not. Years before deregulation gave rise to budget airlines, Southwest led the way with its “low-fare, economy-only, no-frills” model. Nowadays, many low-cost airlines play a riff on Southwest’s tune, but they can’t approach the loyalty of its passengers. Southwest is Americans’ favorite economy carrier, per J.D. Power’s most recent airline survey. In the hellscape of airport lines and stuffed planes, Southwest manages to offer an experience that occasionally borders on actual fun. “We didn't have a lot of money when we started,” Whitney Eichinger, Southwest’s svp of culture and communications, recounted to Adweek. “So we really, really relied on our employees to be the brand. Which we still do.” (It does. Google “funniest flight attendant ever.”) What today’s marketing jargon would refer to as an “employee-centric approach” was originally just the way Herb Kelleher wanted to run an airline. An East Coast attorney who moved to San Antonio to start his own firm, Kelleher had a renegade client named Rollin King who, over lunch one afternoon in 1967, proposed starting an intrastate airline that would “democratize the skies” by making air travel affordable. It was a revolutionary idea, but Kelleher’s HR approach would be just as influential. A larger-than-life CEO who smoked Kools, drank Wild Turkey and showed up at meetings in an Elvis costume, Kelleher—who retired in 2008 and died in 2019—was legendary for pitching in as a baggage handler and delivering doughnuts to his mechanics on third shift. Until the pandemic made it impossible, Southwest never furloughed a worker or cut pay. “Your employees come first,” Kelleher once said. “And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back.” Tangerine dream A good metric to gauge Southwest’s popularity can be found in its wide range of branded merchandise, which the flying public willingly buys and wears. One of Southwest’s regular passengers is designer Andrew Hochradel (below) who, on his own initiative, created an entire line of merchandise including shirts, keychains and a cooler. Hochradel drew his inspiration from Southwest's groovy roots, including a memorable 1971 TV spot featuring a flight attendant asking: “Remember what it was like before there was somebody else up there who loved you?” A lot of companies would have sent Hochradel a cease-and-desist letter. Instead, Southwest partnered with him to sell his merch in its online store. “We were the love airline,” said Eichinger, herself a fan of the old spots. “We were built on hot pants.” Sorry about that In July, Southwest revealed that over Independence Day break, it notched a 99% completion rate on 20,000 flights carrying more than 2.5 million passengers. Why bleat about it? Because Southwest had a bit of reputation repair to do. When winter storms in the Midwest forced Southwest to cancel some 16,700 flights over the holidays, the airline's reservation system fell apart under the stress of passengers attempting to reschedule. The debacle cost the airline $800 million and resulted in COO Andrew Watterson delivering a mea culpa at a Senate hearing. “We just want to reiterate that we are running a strong operation, which is our promise to our customers,” Eichinger said. Sky marshals Southwest began in 1967 when attorney Herb Kelleher had drinks with client Rollin King (1, l. to r.). Using a cocktail napkin (2), King proposed creating an airline that would fly only between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, thus avoiding a lot of federal regulations. Southwest's inaugural fleet consisted of three 737s with 90% financing from Boeing (3).

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Southwest Airlines Prides Itself on Being the 'Love Airline'

From low fares and hot pants to America's favorite economy carrier

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara