Southwest Airlines Community

Don’t touch that dial!  This week’s Flashback Fridays is both a look at our relationship with some Dallas radio stations, and it’s a review of some of the methods we have used to build the Southwest Airlines brand.  There are some cool photos too.   We begin with the above, and no, these aren’t 70s revolutionaries trying to take the airplane to Havana.  The two “revolutionaries” are Kevin McCarthy (standing) and Dick Hitt, the morning drive-time hosts on Dallas radio station KNUS FM (pronounced KAY-news), which was located at 98.7 on the dial.  (Keep that frequency in mind, it will pop up later.)  The Corpus Christi poster on the bulkhead and the Flight Attendant uniform date this view to sometime between March 1, 1977, the day we began service to Corpus Christi, and May 15, 1977, the day the uniforms changed.  The occasion for the trip was the KNUS-D Magazine “South Padre Island Sand Castle Building Competition, Margarita Drinking Exhibition, Beachfront Olympics, Dart Tournament, Mexican Shopping Excursion, and International Calgon Bathoil [sic] Beads Gulf Spill.”  According to Southwest Airlines Magazine, over 190 people made the trip, and they must have used two flights to accommodate that many people.  If you ever wanted a photo that sums up the 1970s, this would be it.  Kevin is wearing a safari jacket and holding a cocktail and a cigarette while making an inflight announcement.  Dick is also smoking and has a stash of cocktails by his side.  Like Kevin’s, his outfit comes off the racks at “70s R’ Us.”    Meanwhile, Ron Chapman (above) was the morning drive guy for KVIL FM.  KVIL topped competition like KNUS and became the area’s most popular radio station, and Ron became the area’s most recognizable voice.  In 1980, Ron traveled to Lubbock with a giant chicken (I don’t know the reason this traveling companion was selected) to celebrate Southwest’s lack of advance-purchase fares.    After 31 years at KVIL, Ron left in 2000 for K-LUV FM, an “oldie” station that used the same frequency, 98.7, as the old KNUS.  His many loyal users made the switch too.   K-LUV’s call letters made it a natural partner of the LUV Airline, and in a joint promotion with Southwest, the “LUV Bug” was born.  This special Beetle became a common sight all over the Metroplex, and it kind of reminds you of the old Gremlins and Pacers from the 1970s that wore Southwest colors.  When Ron retired in June 2005, Southwest surprised him on the air with the unveiling of N215WN that wore a Ron Chapman decal for the next month.  Southwest still partners with radio stations, and since 2006, we have participated in the annual Kidd’s Kids effort set up by locally based, nationally syndicated radio personality, Kidd Kraddick.  Each year, Kidd flies a group of seriously ill children and their families to Orlando for a stay at DisneyWorld.  Southwest Employees participate in the fund raising, and we provide an aircraft for the trip.  (That’s Kidd, with the sunglasses, and the rest of the show’s personalities.)  This year’s trip left yesterday (November 8). On a less serious note, we also have a relationship with The Ticket, one of Dallas’s most popular stations.  This past summer, their morning show, “The Musers,” broadcast from our Flight Operations Training Building, and they flew one of the simulators and went through evacuation training while on the air.  Above, we see the show’s three personalities (left to right), Craig Miller, Gordon Keith, and George Dunham undergoing life vest training. Our longterm association with Dallas radio stations has provided us a "Southwest" way to share our Fun-LUVing Attitude with the area’s folks, no matter if it was part of the “swinging 70s” or kidding around with The Musers this year.  And our association with Kidd’s Kids has allowed us to share our Servant’s Hearts with a national audience.  It speaks volumes that, throughout our history, the top local radio stations have wanted to be associated with the People of Southwest Airlines.  That’s the power of the brand that our folks have built.   ... View more

In the early days, Southwest Airlines created more iconic images than an upstart carrier with just three airplanes should have generated.  I don’t think anyone ever said:  “Today, we’re going to make an icon.”  It just happened naturally.  Some of those images include the early television advertisement where a model dressed in our first Flight Attendant uniform strolls down a runway as a 737-200 screams by just a few feet above her head.  Another iconic photo shows our original Flight Attendants decked out in hot pants lined up on a 737’s air stairs, and my favorite is the 1972 photo (above) showing a line of Flight Attendants holding hands and running toward the camera.  The last-mentioned photo was so popular that it has been recreated for almost every landmark Southwest anniversary.   However, it wasn’t the only early Southwest iconic photo to have a remake.  I thought it would be fun to compare some of the more obscure “reshoots” with their better known originals.  Let’s start with the photo above.  Prior to beginning service on June 18, 1971, we took a series of publicity photos with our Flight Attendants walking behind all three of our original aircraft.  Note that “Southwest” is written on the fuselage, and the word “airlines” is displayed on the aircrafts' tails.  The location was our original hangar located near Bachman Lake.  Just a few years later in the same location, we took a newer version, only in black and white.  There are a couple of clues that allow us to put an approximate date on the scene.  “Southwest” has been moved to the tail and “airlines" has been deleted.  This revision to the original livery began with the delivery of the fourth aircraft, N23SW, in November 1971, but the remaining original aircraft (N21SW and N22SW) kept their full titles at least until mid-1973.  (The delivery of N23SW was the event that triggered the sale of N20SW and the establishment of the ten-minute turn.)  Since we only had three aircraft at the time of this photo, one of these airplanes has to be an original with the modified livery.  This means that the photo must be mid-1973 or later.  And, because the original uniforms were worn until September 1974, the photo has to be earlier than that date.  That puts it into the 1973/1974 timeframe.  The same day that the running Flight Attendant photo mentioned in the first paragraph was taken, the photographer used a cherry picker to take photos that included representatives of each Employee work group.  The chosen image (above) had a wide distribution, and it is another favorite of mine because it shows Original Employees that normally didn’t get a lot of publicity.  Note the hangars in the background. The photo above recreates the 1972 scene.  My guess is that this is from the early 1990s, and the location is the taxiway leading to our Dallas Maintenance Base.  The hangar in the distance above the nose can also be seen in the 1972 version.  Like some of the other photos in this post, we have clues that help us date it.  Many of the Employees appear to be wearing their blue nautical style uniforms that were introduced in February 1990.  At extreme enlargement, it appears that the airplane is 737-200, N54SW.  This airplane left the Southwest fleet in September of 1990.  Based on that and that there are so many folks wearing shorts in the photo, it was probably taken in the spring or summer of 1990.  It’s even possible that the photo was taken after N54SW ended its Southwest service but before it left the property.   Yes, that’s Herb in the front row, and he appears to be wearing an Air Force flight suit.   And, remember that commercial with the airplane screaming over the actor portraying the Flight Attendant walking down the runway?  The photo above pays homage to that ad as it shows a Flight Attendant in the original uniform walking down the runway (actually, it is a taxiway) next to an Employee wearing the uniform introduced in 1980.  This may have been a publicity shot for our tenth anniversary in 1981.    Scroll back through these photos and you see confidence, energy, and a bit of swagger in the images.  We see personification of the attitude that would later be described as Living the Southwest Way: a Warrior Spirit, a Fun-LUVing Attitude, and a Servant’s Heart.  Considering our humble beginnings, Southwest could have labored in anonymity down in our little corner of the Texas sky.  But thanks to these photos and the Employees illustrated in them, our national reputation grew to a dimension all out of proportion to our size.  Frankly, it would be impossible to take (or retake) most of these photos today with the way airport security has changed.  That’s one of the reasons these images are so unique and important.  They are symbols of our beginnings and a reminder that our work is still not finished.  ... View more

Maybe you’ve worked or flown on 737-700, N418WN, and you saw the words The Winning Spirit proudly displayed on the aircraft’s nose.  The reasons behind the names some of our aircraft carry are self-evident, but what about N418WN?  It is actually the latest of several aircraft to wear this title, and it and its predecessors are dedicated to our Original Employees.  This week, we have some photos from the dedication of the original The Winning Spirit, N68SW, on our tenth birthday, June 18, 1981.  I looked at this event briefly in an earlier post this year, but I think it deserves a second, more in depth look.  One of the things that make this event significant is that this was the last public event where our Original Employees were represented in such large numbers.  With the exception of our first President, Lamar Muse, the photo above shows the original Southwest Leadership Team.  Out of all the photos from the event, this is my favorite.  It shows Co-Founders, Herb Kelleher (left) and Rollin King (center).  And, we have the three members of the “Over the Hill Gang,” a group of senior former airline executives who were hired to provide the brand new Southwest with operating experience.  Bill Franklin is between Herb and Rollin, and Don Ogden is to the right of Rollin, followed by Jack Vidal.  As I wrote in May’s blog post:  “Don Ogden had already retired as Vice President Flight Operations earlier in 1981, and while he remained on the Board until 2006, Rollin would step back from his day to day role with the Company.  In 1985, Bill Franklin would head Southwest’s subsidiary TranStar as President.  Jack Vidal, who received Employee #4 under our current system, retired in 1995.  Herb, of course, would remain Chairman, CEO, and President until 2001 and as Chairman until 2008." For the christening of the aircraft, there was a drawing to see which two Employees would have the honor.  Scott Johnson (left), then Director of Flight Control, and Bill Abraham, Maintenance Line Forman won.  The urn appears to have contained confetti instead of champagne, and as they were emptying the urn, the aircraft’s name was unveiled.  Writing on the back of the above photograph identifies the women on the stairs as Joy Bardo, Patty Alston, and Cathy Parson.  The late Sam Cohn stands next to the aircraft.   The final photo is the one I really wanted to talk about.  According to LUVLines (our Employee magazine), we had 66 Original Employees still on the payroll on the occasion of our tenth anniversary.  Considering that our number of Employees for the first two years averaged around 190, 35 percent of the Employees who began Southwest were still working a decade later.  The Employees in the photo created the foundation for what Southwest is today.  Somewhat surprisingly, 41 years later, we still have about five percent of our Originals working with us.  But let’s go beyond the numbers.  From our vantage point 41 years after Southwest began service in 1971, I think a lot of current Employees tend to think of the Originals as some form of super human.  Yes, they did amazing things that we will never have to do, but I think that making the Originals bigger than life is the wrong way to look at this group of Employees.  Even though they created a special airline and a rewarding work place, it lessens our own efforts and relieves of us of our own responsibility to excel if we deify them.  It’s like saying, “I could never do what they did,” and that simply isn’t true.  Don’t you think that there were days that the Originals would rather have been someplace else than work; that there were days filled with upset Customers and irregular operations (it rained and snowed back then) that ruined their personal plans; and that they probably didn’t like the constant change and the never finished nature of an airline career?  One of the Originals’ greatest accomplishments was the ten-minute turn, but some of them have confessed to me that they weren’t happy having to change.  No one likes extra work, but they didn’t have the option of the ten-minute turn or keeping “business as usual.”  And, you know what?  Some of them didn’t always like their immediate boss, either.  Does that detract from their accomplishments?  Absolutely not.  What makes their actions special is that they were ordinary people with an extraordinary Spirit.  They came to work, they smiled, and they made Customers feel welcome with genuine gratitude and empathy, even if they wanted to be elsewhere.  When irregular operations messed up their days, they made the best of the situation.  When economic, competitive, or legal pressures required change, sometimes overnight, they met the challenge because they didn’t want to fail.  They knew their survival depended upon each other.  This is the Winning Spirit of real people that we celebrate and dedicate with this aircraft.  ... View more

In the beginning, there were flights.  Those Southwest Airlines flights served Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.  Flight Attendants and Ticket Agents in hot pants and big smiles served our Customers, but American Airlines served as the initial point of contact for most of those Customers.  For the first year and a half (up until March 1973) of Southwest’s existence, American’s Reservations Office near the old Greater Southwest International Airport in Fort Worth handled Southwest’s reservations calls.  At the end of the day, American would forward the next day’s flight booking information to Southwest.  With just a handful of daily flights the system was simple and worked well.   As loads grew, especially after the $13 Fare War in early 1973, Southwest opened our own Reservations Center on North Watson Road in Arlington with leased space in an office building.  The Dallas Reservations Center (DRC) opened with 17 Reservations Agents filling 15 phone positions.  Original Employee Karen Ordner (above), who had begun with Southwest on June 1, 1971, in Revenue Accounting, was DRC’s first Manager.  Karen recently donated materials dating back to these earliest days to the Southwest Archives, and we are fortunate to share some of them with you here.   Among Karen’s items are several seating diagrams for DRC.  The one above shows the layout of the office in its initial 1973 incarnation.  A small conveyer ran down between the facing tables, and it carried the reservations cards from the Agent making the reservation to the Agent maintaining the flight inventories.  The telephone room housed the center’s only technology, the phone equipment.   This photo illustrates the two center rows of sales position, and the phones are multi-line rotary units.  At least the Agents have headsets, and the blackboards on the wall display current flight and fare information...  Note the thick 70s style shag carpeting on the floor and the solitary plant on the top shelf.  The Agent at in the middle of the photo has her sack lunch on the floor next to her. Next we have the entrance to the Manager’s office.  Compare the sparsely decorated walls with any current Southwest facility.  The solitary wall hanging, a framed poster, was one of a series of posters featuring our Flight Attendants that were displayed at our facilities.  The woman on the right of the other two Employees is Geri Campbell.   Fortunately, our loads continued to grow, and by mid-1974, DRC was expanded to 60 sales positions with a staff of 160 Reservations Sales Agents.  The diagram above illustrates how the center expanded to the right of the original facility (which is at the far left).  DRC would expand one more time to occupy the entire first floor before moving to a new facility off of I-30 in Grand Prairie.    By the time of that third expansion, our Reservations Employees were using a computerized reservations system that utilized Bunker-Ramo computers.  (Karen donated some training materials for these computers, so stay tuned.)  But rather than explore that this week, let’s close with this artifact of the manual reservations era.  Above is part of a “Control Chart” for a day’s flights.  The column on the left has the flight numbers and city pairs.  (RGV is Rio Grande Valley, or Harlingen, so we can date the chart from after February 11, 1975.)  As a seat was booked, the next available number was crossed off the page, and when all the numbers were crossed out, the flight was full.  The system was extremely simple, and since there were no flight manifests, it relied a lot upon the honor system.  Although the reservations cards (the equivalent to today’s Passenger Name Record), contained Customer names, Karen told me that the only time a name was referenced was in the case of an oversold flight.  Today, Reservations has become Customer Support and Services (CS&S), a name that more accurately reflects our CS&S Employees roles in the online age, but one thing hasn’t changed:  You can still “hear” our Employees' smiles coming through the phone anytime you have the occasion to call Southwest Airlines. ... View more

This week, we have photos that take us back to the start of a longtime Southwest Airlines tradition, and as a bonus, they also show us the interior of one of our three original aircraft.  Like so many other of the recent Flashback Fridays installments, this week’s post uses uncut roles of negatives that I recently found.   We’ve heard hundreds of stories of couples who found love on the LUV Airline.  Meeting a future mate is an overlooked but significant (if you are one of the couples involved) byproduct of our open-seating boarding method.  I don’t know where the couple in these photographs met, but it is obvious that they have a close relationship and that Southwest plays a role in that relationship.  Unfortunately, the details of this scene have been long lost to history, so we can only guess at what is happening.  Our Captain, Roger Benjamin, (fondly known as “Captain Ben” to our Flight Attendants) has presented the couple with roses.  From the smug look on Captain Ben’s face, he has said something that “hit home” with the man and woman.  The couple's expressions are priceless, and if the photo was in color, no doubt we would be looking at faces red with good-natured kidding.  Scenes like this have been repeated frequently on Southwest over the years.   Not only do these photos illustrate the beginnings of one of our traditions, they take us inside one of our original three aircraft, in this case, N22SW (C/N 20336).  How can we tell which specific aircraft?  Fortunately, the distinctive side wall panels with California scenes help the identification process.  Two of our three original aircraft were intended for the two California intrastate airlines, PSA and Air California.  (The third was for Aloha.)  The ex-PSA aircraft was N20SW (C/N 20369), and it was the aircraft we had to sell after we had acquired a fourth aircraft (N23SW) in late 1971.  Since almost all of the other negatives in the box were from 1973, that would seem to eliminate this being a photo of N20SW.  Even though both N20SW and N22SW (the ex-Air California aircraft) had California-themed sidewalls, the designs were different.  The sidewall in the picture above features the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco cable cars, and the California Capitol Building in Sacramento, and along with the darker background on the walls, this identifies it as N22SW, the Air California airplane.  The PSA aircraft’s sidewalls were lighter, and they included views of the landmark Theme Building at Los Angeles International and a movie set representing Burbank—Air California flew to neither location at the time.  So, based on the date of the photo and the illustrations, we can say this is N22SW.   Next, we have a view of the forward cabin of N22SW during flight (above).  Fortunately, our load factors are a lot better these days.  Note the clear glass wind screen on the left that kept the wind from blowing through the open door into the cabin.  To say that the design of the forward bulkhead is “busy” would be an understatement.  The Flight Attendant poster on the wall further dates this as 1973 or 1974 because it was during this time frame that these posters were featured at our ticket counters.  (Still another clue that the aircraft is N22SW.)   Although the photo above of television personality Art Linkletter, who was on his way to Houston to address the American Motivational Association, and Captains Raul Cabeza and Sam Cohn is from a different roll of negatives, I include it here because it was also taken onboard N22SW during late 1973.  Mr. Linkletter and Captain Cabeza are sitting in a row at the mid-cabin lounge (a favorite spot for photos like these).  Note that the backs of their chairs are a lot shorter than the rest of the seats.  This view also gives us a good look at the original Boeing style of passenger service units (PSUs) that dated to the 707 and the open overhead shelf.  Only hats and coats could be placed in the overhead space on these aircraft.  In a way it’s ironic that two of our three first airplanes had interiors that reflected California.  I like to think this was an omen that we would eventually be the top carrier within the Golden State.   Like so many other frozen moments in time, these photos help define our past, and they shape our future.  In the stories of Southwest’s past, we see the development of Southwest’s present, and the framework of Southwest’s future.  If there’s one thing I hope this series of posts can accomplish, it is to raise the awareness that, 40 years from now, a new generation will be looking at us, hopefully with the same respect that we show those who came before.  We write our history every day with what we do. ... View more

Those of us hired after 1990 weren’t able to experience the old Southwest Headquarters facility at the former Braniff Love Field Concourse.  For a little more than ten years, this unusual building served as the heartbeat of our system, and it was the first example of Southwest coming up with alternate uses for the many gates that were left empty when the other airlines moved to the DFW Airport.  Besides our Headquarters facility, at one time or another, our Crew Base utilized old gate space, as did our University for People and our Customer Support and Services Department's Source of Support Team (formerly known as the Reservations Resource Center).   The Braniff concourse was left empty on January 13, 1974, when the carrier moved its flights to DFW.  That same year, Southwest would move Headquarters from the original 1920s passenger terminal on Love Field Drive to an offsite office park on Regal Row.  Five years later, Southwest moved back to the airport into these empty gates.  As part of the process to turn gates and operational space into offices, the concourse was stripped (above) so it could be remodeled.  This photo looks like the ground level where Braniff probably had operational offices.   A longtime Headquarters tradition is flying the Southwest flag.  The photo above shows some of our Headquarters staff and Officers raising an early version of the flag on the flagpole in front of the then-new facility.  President and CEO Howard Putnam is second from the left, and the tall man with a mustache in the background is Executive Vice President Gary Barron.  Bill Franklin, another EVP, is second from the right, and at the far right of the group is Vice President Harold Riley.  Longtime Vice President and Original Employee Camille Keith is standing next to the flag pole. If you look at the building's siding above Howard, you can see where a former jetbridge opening has been covered over.  These Employees are standing where the ramp area was once full of aircraft when Braniff used the building. Inside, we see the rotunda area of the concourse, which was being used as a gathering area to celebrate Howard’s birthday.  (Due to his short stay with Southwest, these photos would have been taken between August 1, 1979 when the building opened and September 22, 1981.)  Braniff had commissioned the noted artist, Alexander Calder, to design the interior of their facility, and we see that his unique light fixtures made the transition from crowded Braniff concourse to Southwest Headquarters gathering space.  By the way, that’s Howard with the “cheerleader.”   Above is a view of the crowd gathered for the celebration, and we see a different angle of the rotunda.    The next photo is a view of the refreshment table.  Unfortunately, the focus on many of these photos is less than sharp, but at the left of the photo behind the woman in the dark dress, you can see the hallway that originally led down the concourse.   I don’t know what the occasion was for this final interior photo, but it looks as though one of the areas beneath the former gates is being utilized for some kind of meeting area.  Due to the window pattern, I am guessing that this was on the ground floor. We close with the Southwest flag and Old Glory waving over our old Headquarters at the Love Field Terminal.  This portion of the building was the first section to be razed during the modernization project currently underway.  Southwest’s new Cargo and Provisioning Building is in this same general area.  Located farther to the left and out of site of the photo, the walkway from what was the Braniff ticketing wing to the concourse and a small section of gates has been put back into use to serve as Terminal One for United and Delta while the main terminal is being remodeled.  Last I heard, most of what is left of that portion of the building will remain after the project is completed.  In 1990, our current Headquarters building opened.  It is still on airport property, but it is located next to Denton Drive across Runway 13 Right/31 Left from the terminal.  Even though it only served us for a decade, the old Headquarters in the Braniff Concourse serves as a symbol of Southwest’s transition from a tiny intrastate airline serving three Texas cities to an airline that carries the most domestic Passengers.  It’s also ironic that the first part of this growth pattern came in a facility originally operated by the airline that wanted most to put Southwest out of business. ... View more

In last week’s installment, we looked at the areas of Love Field that were abandoned by the other airlines when they moved to the DFW Airport on Sunday, January 13, 1974.  This week, we look at how, on that Sunday, Southwest began remaking the terminal to suit its needs. We begin with this photo that symbolizes the transition between the old and the new.  Back when American Airlines was headquartered in New York City, they used drawings like this, similar to those in New Yorker magazine in some of their ads.  This drawing was in the upper level passageway from the West Concourse to the baggage claim.  Mary Cuca, one of our Flight Attendants, wears the original uniform with the poncho to add some sophistication to the scene.  We see her holding a Southwest travel bag in front of the “AA” travel bag in the drawing.  At the gate areas, other reminders of the previous occupant had to be erased in a more permanent fashion.  Behind the gate podium, we see the American logo displayed in two places on the backdrop, and “American” above the flight number.  Moving day was an “all hands on deck” event for the two and a half-year old airline.  Dallas Station Manager Carl Warrell (with his back to the camera) is working on the signs, and Bill Franklin, Vice President in charge of Customer Service at the airports and Reservations Centers (light colored jacket) is helping Dallas Assistant Station Manager Jack Mercer string the wires for the Love Ticket Dispenser (otherwise known as an NCR cash register).Carl recently passed away, and our thoughts are with his family.   Meanwhile, Bud Herring, our Vice President Inflight back then, is helping to put the Southwest touch on the walls of the gate area.  On the floor next to the chairs are some of the framed posters that would go on the wall.  American was the first airline to modernize their concourse at Love Field.  My family moved to Dallas in 1967 and the construction was under way then.  (During the construction, I was meeting a family friend with my parents, and I saw a very young Glen Campbell in the temporary gate area near where Gate #1 is now.)  Consequently, American’s efforts were designed to be more permanent than those on later concourse renovations like the North Concourse.  One example of this “permanence” is the tile on the gate area wall. The photo above appears to be the area across from Gate #2, which is currently occupied by Chili’s Too restaurant.  Notice the Gate #2 sign above and behind the Employee on the left.  These Flight Attendants are decorating the wall with paper ribbon.  Interesting side note:  Our Flight Attendants would only wear these original uniforms a few more months until September 1974, when a new hot pant design with a polka dot blouse is introduced.   Bud gets some help from Lovie Wallace in hanging one of our iconic posters over the old American logo behind the gate podium.  During the mid-1970s, these posters featuring our Hostesses (the title back then for Flight Attendant) were located behind our ticket counters and gate podiums, and this poster is a picture of Cathy Rabon.  If you will think back to last week’s Flashback Fridays, we had a picture of the ramp area around Gate #1 blocked by American ramp equipment.  There was no way to get an airplane up to the jetbridge.  The photo above shows the solution.  The airplane was parked on the “back side” of the concourse, and air stairs were used for deplaning and boarding.  Overseeing the process are Cofounder Rollin King and Southwest’s first President, Lamar Muse.  To the right of the picture with his collar turned up to block the wind is original Mechanic Jim Hutchins who was hired a month before Southwest began service.  The North Concourse is visible behind the aircraft, and this helps locate the scene.  This is either N21SW or N22SW (since it is a non-advanced -200 without a cargo door), and the photo shows that the word “Airlines” has finally been removed from the tail.  Again, its obvious that this is a raw, wet day. We close this look at moving day with this very “Texas” shot, as the man in the cowboy hat watches our flight taxi away from the terminal.  The gates on the left at the very end of the concourse will remain empty for a while until Southwest builds up its Love Field schedule.  The outer end of the North Concourse is in front of the aircraft.  Inflight Training will eventually occupy that part of the North Concourse.  However, on this day after the airlines moved to the DFW Airport, the Love Field terminal has fallen silent (except for the two Southwest gates and new ticket counter) for the first time since it opened 16 years ago almost to the day on January 20, 1958.  I want to mention special thanks to Original Flight Attendants Deborah Stembridge and Sandra Bogan, and Original Employees Dan Johnson and Willie Wilson for helping me with the Employee identifications.    Next week, we have a guest blogger, Jack Wild, a Boston Operations Agent, who will salute Independence Day by sharing some vintage views of the airport that serves the birthplace of the American Revolution, Boston Logan. ... 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Continuing our celebration of June being Southwest’s birthday month, I am sharing some more recently uncovered and unseen images.  We stay on the North Concourse at Love Field this week to look at some action on the ramp.  As regular readers will know, I think our archive photos that show early working days are among our most precious images, and those taken on the North Concourse are among the rarest.  The North Concourse is literally the spot where Southwest began, so let’s go outside to look at the action at Gate 25 on the North Concourse.  The date is probably early 1973, and it was a cold, dreary day.  N22SW is ready for pushback, while N21SW in the background holds out for the gate.  Note the lack of uniforms on the tug driver and the man with the blue jeans and denim jacket.  It’s a little hard to see, but the aircraft are now carrying their ship number on the nose landing gear door.  Also check out the peeling paint on the nose cone—hitting rain at high speed tends to peel paint.  Love Field history buffs will be interested in how the jetbridge was attached to the main building. Pushback begins as N21SW patiently waits for the gate to clear.  The Provisioning truck stands by for the next flight in the left of the photo underneath the jetbridge.    With N22SW out of sight to the left, N21SW taxies down the parking line into the gate.  An American DC-10 is just visible above the top of the West Concourse behind N21SW’s right wing.   Provisioning has already raised their truck up to the aft galley service door as the pushback crew and their tug return to the gate to set up for the next departure.  A Delta bag tug drives by, and N22SW taxies out behind the newly arrived aircraft.  The grime on the aft fuselage from the thrust reversers is a trademark of the 737-200.  Both aircraft wear our original titles with the word “AIRLINES” on the aft fuselage.    The last cart of bags is being loaded into N21SW’s cargo bins.  This photo is chock full of interesting items.  First off, the bag carts belong to the original Frontier.  Until the other airlines moved to the new DFW Airport in January 1974, our ticket counter was a small section of the Frontier counter.  That explains the bag cart.  Notice that all the Employees around the belt loader are wearing suits.  The North Concourse gates belonged to Delta, and one of their DC-9s is visible at the next gate to the right of our flight.  A Continental DC-9 taxies around the far end of the North Concourse in the upper right of the photo.  Immediately behind the tail of N21SW, an American Boeing 707 pulls into the gate.   A short ten minutes later, N21SW pushes back from the gate.  Over on the American concourse, the DC-10 has been replaced by a 707, and it is joined by two more 707s immediately behind our aircraft.  As the flight heads for the runway, we get a good view of the concourse that will be our future home at Love Field.  A victim of age and progress, the North Concourse is gone, and the new, modern new single concourse is rising in its place.  Soon, the current West Concourse will follow.  Even though their passing means a new state of the art terminal for our post-Wright Amendment Customers, it’s a shame that the spot from where Southwest’s first flight departed is gone.  Next week, we will use newly uncovered images to explore the day the other airlines moved to the DFW Airport.     ... View more

Every so often, there are reports about someone discovering a long-lost masterpiece of art in their attic.  Well that happened to me during the past week or so.  I found a big box of uncut black and white negatives, and most all of them were taken before 1974.  Amazing to me is that many of these photos have never been seen before.  I will be sharing these images with you over the next month or so to celebrate our 41 st birthday.  Let’s begin with Houston Hobby.  The current terminal site opened in 1954, and all the airlines moved to Intercontinental (now George Bush Intercontinental) in 1969.  Those airlines spent at most 15 years at the site.  Southwest initially began service at Intercontinental on June 18, 1971.  However, on November 14 of that year, Southwest reopened Hobby.  Last November 14 marked our 40 th Anniversary of continually serving Houston’s close-in, south side airport. Our first home at Hobby, was the old Customs building, which was a small temporary building that was located near the roadway ramp to the upper level of the main terminal,  When we began serving there, we shared the main lobby with Braniff, and the main lobby served as the gate holding area too.  I wrote about this arrangement in the April 1, 2011, “Flashback Fridays."  This week’s slightly later batch of photos are a result of the need for preboarding screening of all airline passengers and their carryons that went into effect on January 5, 1973.  The photo above shows one of the new separate gate hold areas under construction.  Note that the light fixtures are just fluorescent tubes.  Original Employee Dan Johnson, who worked at Hobby, recognizes Ollie Ross, who is the Ticket Agent on the right.  Unfortunately, Dan didn’t recognize the man wearing an “extreme” early 1970s wardrobe that mixed diamond pants and striped shirts.  Only a few chairs have been installed in the gate.  (The second gate area is visible through the glass.) Above, we see the construction crew taking a break.  The man wearing the cowboy hat doesn’t leave much doubt that this is Texas.  The door out to the airplane and the crank-operated windows are at the back left corner of the room.  We ran some photos of this completed gate area in the September 9, 2011 “Flashback.”  On the same role of negatives, is this outside shot on the Hobby ramp.  The Flight Attendant is another Original Employee, Deborah Stembridge.  I asked her help in identifying the Employee, and Deborah sent me back a humorous e-mail saying that, while she hadn’t seen the photo, it was definitely her.  Given the timeframe of the photo, I am guessing that the aircraft is N23SW.  This airplane, which was delivered in November 1971, arrived without the “Airlines” title on the tail; the remaining two original aircraft carried those titles into at least mid-1973.  N23SW was the last non-advanced 737-200 that we purchased, and behind Deborah, we see the “blow in doors” around the intakes of the non-advanced -200s.  Unfortunately, the angle of the photo cuts off the registration number and the area of the fuselage where the main deck cargo door was located on N23SW. We close with this photo from the front of the roll showing Customers in the lounge area.  The photographer probably snapped it on the way down to Houston.  Longtime Employees please correct me, but I think this is the lounge at the aft of the aircraft due to the bulkhead.  The very last row contained only two seats with a table-like area in between the seats. Almost from the day it opened, Houston Hobby has been one of our most important airports, and we have continually updated our facility there over the past 40 or so years.  This week’s photos illustrate the start of that journey.  Remember, we have many more “lost” images coming to you in the weeks ahead. ... View more

As mentioned in previous Flashback Fridays, Southwest utilized a lot of different promotional tie-ins in our earliest days.  We were desperate to get publicity but had a very limited budget, so we were always looking for promotional partners to “get the word out.”  Sometimes, as we saw last week, it involved local television stations, but more often it involved local businesses in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, and later, in other Texas cities.    The Bonanza restaurant chain had stores in all three of our original cities.  (Like all the ex-Stuckeys lining the Interstates, you can always tell an ex-Bonanza restaurant by its unique shape.)  To celebrate our Millionth Passenger in 1973, we presented each roundtrip Customer with a “Passport to Paradise” that was a $5.00 discount certificate for food, drink, or lodging at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas.  Ticket Agent Debbie Denman gives Bonanza's Julian Dodd his Passport. The photo above may be one of our earliest joint promotions.  Judging by the uniforms, the original titling on the tail, and because the ladies are wearing jackets, I am guessing this is late 1971 at Houston Hobby.  Besides their jackets, the Flight Attendants (Hostesses back then) are wearing lobster bibs from Angelo’s Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant located on South Main in Houston.  My fellow avgeeks will find the airplane in the background to be a tastier “dish” than a lobster dinner.  Although it is small, if you look behind the wing between the main landing gear and the engine, you can see the triple tails of a Lockheed Constellation.   At about the same date of the previous photo, the Mr. Bean lookalike above was promoting a new service we were offering on our 11:30 a.m. departures between Dallas and Houston.  These “cheese and wine” flights offered complimentary wine and cheese to our lunchtime Customers.  Flight Attendants Judy Simpkins and Jackie York serve our happy businessman.  Note the open overhead shelf and the large passenger service units.  It’s interesting to note this early instance of serving something other than peanuts and other prepackaged items.   In 1975, our promotions got a little more substantial as we teamed up with RC Cola to give Dallas Customers the chance to win a new 1975 AMC Pacer that was” air conditioned, and ready to go.”  The six second place winners won a weekend for two at the Country Club Inns in the “beautiful” Rio Grande Valley, including travel to Harlingen on Southwest, the use of an AMC car for the stay, and $100.00 of “fun money.”  Third prize was one “kid-sized” Pacer go-kart.   The Formula Atlantic car above is considerably faster than either a Pacer or Pacer go-kart.  Southwest Ramp Agent Sandy Shepard shows off his Lola racecar in the parking lot behind our old Headquarters building on Regal Row in late 1975 or early 1976.  Sandy was an experienced and well-known driver on various “formula car” circuits.  He is joined by Flight Attendants Teddi Melton (left) and Tina Sicard.  Note the vintage cars all around the parking lot and that besides the Southwest name, his car appears to wear Southwest colors.   And finally, we close with this collection of 1977 SWA Swag.  These items leave no doubt about the identity of the “Love Airline.”  In the pouch of the Love Bag are a July 18, 1977 flight schedule and a brochure on Love Field.  The “Love Lites” are Southwest-branded match books, and I’m not sure what is in the container on the lower left.  The coffee cup utilized our original titling, and the swizzle sticks will look familiar to any current Customer.    I think these photos give a good glimpse at Southwest making more out of less.  As we would grow and prosper, many more companies would look for the opportunity to link their brands with ours.  Still, there is a lot of charm in a fledgling (and struggling) airline teaming up with a local lobster restaurant. ... View more

Sixty years ago on May 2, 1952, the world changed forever.  On that date, the jet age began as British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) made the first commercial jet flight with the de Havilland Comet 1 from London Heathrow to Johannesburg, South Africa.  The new jet had a limited range so it made en route stops at Rome, Beirut, and Khartoum.  Nevertheless, it averaged 525 miles per hour at an altitude between 35,000 and 40,000 feet.  For more details on this historic flight, click here for Flight magazine’s report in their May 9, 1952, edition. This picture of the world's first jet airline flight is from British Airways excellent historical site. Unfortunately, after a spectacular introductory period, the original Comet exhibited fatal design flaws that grounded this sleek new revolutionary airframe until the debut of the improved and larger Comet IV in 1958, just shortly before the introduction of Boeing’s 707.  However, once airline passengers got a taste of the speed and comfort of jet travel, there would be no going back. ... View more

As promised, I am sharing more photos of the recent “find” that I “unearthed.”  Actually, I opened a drawer and looked in a file, but the sense of discovery is the same.  I hope these photos will be reminders of some forgotten corners of our history.   First, let’s start with a Flight Attendant (actually, at the time, a Hostess) uniform of which many of you are probably unaware.  Above, we see that our Flight Attendants had an alternative to hot pants for colder weather with the 1974 uniform designed by recently deceased Dallas designer Randy Randazzo, Jr.  The October 1974 issue of Southwest Airlines Magazine introduced the new uniforms and stated that the long pants, long sleeve blouse, and jackets were “for those 35-degree and below days.”  Since the northernmost city we served at the time was Dallas, there would have been few days with temperatures cold enough to meet that requirement, which explains why the long pants have been long forgotten.  Incidentally, even though the main part of the cold weather uniform doesn’t feature Mr. Randazzo’s trademark polka dots, the scarf does.  Also note that the aircraft has the “wide-bodied” look overhead bins and our original seat covers.   Moving back about a year from the previous photo, we are in the middle of the great $13 Fare War with Braniff.  In 1973, our one-way fare to Houston was $26.  Early that year, Braniff cut the fare by half to $13 on its flights between Love Field (DFW Airport hadn’t opened yet) and Houston Hobby (Braniff had moved some Dallas service from Intercontinental to Hobby).  Southwest was in a quandary:  We couldn’t lower our fares to $13 without going out of business, but if we kept them at $26, we would lose all our Customers to Braniff and also go out of business. Braniff would win either way with Southwest out of business.  So, we changed the rules of the game (kind of like what Captain Kirk did with the Kobayashi Maru test), and gave Customers a different choice.  They could pay the $13 fare, or they could continue paying $26 and receive a fifth of premium liquor or a nice ice bucket.  Since most passengers expensed their travel, they paid the $26 fare and took home the liquor.  Our President at the time, Lamar Muse, wrote in a newspaper ad that we weren’t going to be shot out of the sky for a “lousy $13.”  And, we weren’t.  Customers saw that Braniff’s only intention was to put us out of business, and for a time, Southwest was the largest liquor distributor in Texas.  This confrontation marked the turning point of Southwest’s history because we were able to solidify our standing in the market with our Customers.  The photo above was taken during the sale, and we see a Customer clutching a copy of Lamar’s ad, and the Gate Agent is offering him a fifth of Chivas or an ice bucket.  In spite of the poor quality of the photo, we have a second historic significance because this is one of very few interior shots that I’ve been able to find of our original North Concourse gates.   On our Tenth Anniversary, June 18, 1981, we dedicated The Winning Sprit aircraft to our Original Employees.  The first aircraft to wear this name was N68SW, a 737-200, and it made a special flight with all of our Original Employees onboard.  Above is the arrival in Dallas, and we see all of the Employees posed around the aircraft.  That’s Cofounders Herb Kelleher and Rollin King standing on the air stairs, and Colleen Barrett is holding roses in the middle of the front row between the woman in the white dress and the man in the dark suit.  The Tenth Anniversary is a great point in time to look at our Originals because, to a large degree, the first decade of Southwest was their accomplishments.  In those ten years, Southwest had survived determined competition in the skies and in the courts, expanded beyond Texas, signed on to be the launch Customer of a new 737 variant, the 737-300, and had gained a national reputation as an airline different than all the rest.    The photographer pulled smaller groups of Employees from specific work Teams for photos, and I wanted to share the photo above because it shows Herb (far left) and Rollin (center) with the “Over the Hill Gang,” our first three Officers whose operating experience ensured Southwest’s survival through the dismal early years.  When Southwest was new, Bill Franklin (between Herb and Rollin) was in charge of Customer Service, including Flight Attendants, Reservations, and Ticket Counters.  Don Ogden (right of Rollin) was in charge of the Operation—Pilots and Dispatchers, and Jack Vidal (on the far right) was in charge of Maintenance.  This photo really marks the curtain call of this group of men working together.  Don Ogden had already retired as Vice President Flight Operations earlier in 1981, and while he remained on the Board until 2006, Rollin would step back from his day to day role with the Company.  In 1985, Bill Franklin would head Southwest’s subsidiary TranStar as President.  Jack Vidal, who received employee #4 under our current system, retired in 1995.  Herb, of course, would remain Chairman, CEO, and President until 2001, and as Chairman until 2008.   And, yes, I admit to an obsession with Southwest’s “rolling stock.”  In the recent March 30, edition of Flashback Fridays, I ran a photo from 1976 of the new AMC Gremlins and Pacers in Southwest livery that were used by our Marketing folks to make sales calls.  As the image above shows, we had Southwest-decorated Gremlins much earlier than 1976.  I count at least 11 Gremlins in this photo that dates from 1972, and there’s not a Pacer to be found.  Why do I say 1972?  The Flight Attendants lined up next to the cars are wearing the original uniforms that lasted until September 1974.  The aircraft is the first N23SW, the only 737 we operated with a main cabin cargo door (and it was the last non-advanced -200 that we received directly from the factory).  We operated N23SW from September 1971 until September 1974.  Those dates help narrow the timeframe, but I think these are 1972 Gremlins because the front bumper changed in 1973.  (Trust me, the last thing I want to become is a “Gremlin Geek,” and this is more than I care to know about Gremlin styling differences.)   I have more recently uncovered gems to share, so stay tuned. Update:  I just found that the Gremlin photo was taken at an event to show our support for Houston Hobby Airport, and it was published in the June 1972 issue of our original inflight magazine, Southwest Airlines Magazine. ... View more

With the recent announcement that Southwest would begin service to two AirTran cities in Ohio, Akron-Canton and Dayton, on August 12, we will now be serving two of the most historically significant destinations in aviation (not to mention the birthplace of professional football in Canton).  Of course, most people know that Dayton was the home of the Wright Brothers, who designed the world’s first successful aircraft.  However, few may realize the aviation significance of Akron. Akron has a ton of indirect aviation connections because most of the rubber companies headquartered there (B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone, and General Tire) made (or make) airplane tires and other aircraft items.  However, for the direct aviation connection, we first have to cross the Atlantic to Friedrichshafen, Germany.  There, Count von Zeppelin began building rigid airships in 1899, and those early Zeppelins began carrying paying passengers in 1910, almost a decade before any airline with airplanes.  His airships became feared strategic bombers during World War I, carrying out many bombing missions over England and Scotland and striking fear into the populace.  A Zeppelin was very different than a common blimp:  They were much larger and carry their gas bags inside a rigid framework of metal that was covered with treated cloth material.  Bombs were carried inside the main framework of a World War 1 Zeppelin (above), and gun positions were installed all around the ship to protect the flammable hydrogen from attacking airplanes.  These “lighter than air” bombers could remain aloft for over 30 hours, an amazing feat compared to the tiny biplanes of the time that measured flight duration in minutes.   After the war, the Allies wanted to put the Zeppelin Company out of business (the Count had died in 1917), but the US persuaded the other Allies to allow Zeppelin to build an airship as part of Germany's war reparations.  This Zeppelin jointed the US Navy as the USS Los Angeles.  It was a forerunner to the Graf Zeppelin, which was a commercial, passenger carrying airship operated by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft (or DELAG), and it made the world’s first round the world, passenger flight in 1929.  Starting in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the Graf Zeppelin made just three en route stops, Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.  The Navy used the earlier Los Angeles as a test vehicle for the modern American-made airships, which would follow.  And this is where Akron enters the story. Goodyear formed a joint company with Zeppelin in 1923 called Goodyear-Zeppelin to build Zeppelins in the US.  The building above is the Goodyear Airdock in Akron which is where the USS Akron and the USS Macon were constructed.  The building is 1,175 feet long, 325 feet wide, and 211 feet high.  With 365,000 square feet of unobstructed space floor space, it was the world’s largest building without interior supports when it was built.  The photo above shows the Macon under construction, and you can see the interior framing.  The fuel cells, crew quarters, and even the engines were contained inside this interior.  The Navy had planned to use the Akron and its sister ship the Macon as flying aircraft carriers, and the interior of the airship housed a airplane hangar that contained five fighter planes used as scouts.  The aircraft were lowered out the bottom of the airship and launched.  After the mission, the airplane’s pilot would use a hook on top of the airplane to latch onto a trapeze lowered from the airship.  Once the plane was captured, it would then be raised into the airship.  The photo above shows the process. The Zeppelins were like no other flying object.  The Akron and Macon were almost 800 feet long, the Hindenburg was slightly larger.  By comparison, the 737-800 is only 129½ feet long, and the current Goodyear blimps are only 192 feet long.  This size allowed the Hindenburg and the earlier Graf Zeppelin to carry passengers in unprecedented luxury.  Above, we see the Hindenburg’s dining room, and it even carried a grand piano.  Incidentally, the American airships used nonflammable helium for lift.  At the time, the world’s only helium reserves were near Amarillo, Texas (another Southwest tie-in), and it was considered a strategic material.  The US refused to export helium to Nazi Germany for the Hindenburg, and it was forced to use highly flammable hydrogen. After the end of the Zeppelin era, Goodyear built hundreds of Navy blimps in the Akron facility along with some of their commercial blimps.  During World War II, Navy blimps protected shipping off both the East and West Coasts.  The Goodyear Airdock still stands in Akron (although it is closed to the public), and it is now owned by the Lockheed-Martin Company.  Ironically, in 2011, Goodyear placed an order with the new Zeppelin Company for their new generation of smaller semi-rigid airships.  These helium-filled Zeppelin NTs will replace the traditional Goodyear Blimps.  (Hindenburg carried a little more than 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen; the NT only carries a little more than 300,000 cubic feet of helium.)  Travelers to Akron probably never consider the role their city played in a form of aviation even older than the airplane, but for awhile in the early 1930s, it seemed that the Zeppelin was the way to go. ... View more