Southwest Airlines Community

The unifying element of the photos in this week’s installment is that all of these images came from uncut rolls of negatives that I found recently.  In this case, the negatives were large format black and white, and they appear to have been taken in late 1973 or early 1974.   We start with a photo of a dollar bill changer, and therein is a strange story of early competition.  Not only did Southwest Airlines face fierce competition from other airlines in our early days, we also were competing against airports.  When the new DFW Regional Airport opened in 1974 (it didn’t become DFW International until 1985), it featured a system of people movers called Airtrans (not to be confused with AirTran Airways) that moved connecting passengers from terminal to terminal.  Passengers had to insert a quarter into the turnstiles, and the DFW Airport provided dollar bill changers in each station.  The only catch is that the changers charged a nickel to make change.  Perhaps the photo above is the first example of Southwest proclaiming we won’t “nickel and dime” our Customers, as this machine at Love Field provided 100 cents back for every dollar.  The happy gentleman proudly shows off his four quarters, and the sign explains that this is “because we love you.”   Next, let’s take a look inside Lamar Muse’s office for a photo of the original Southwest Board of Directors taken at our first Headquarters building located on Love Field Drive, up by Bachman Lake on the north side of Love Field.  (This building was the Love Field passenger terminal during the 1920s and 1930s.)  That’s Cofounder Rollin King at the right of the photo with Herb Kelleher next to him.  Lamar is on the far left of the photo, and in between Lamar and Herb are the three original “non-Officer” Board Members.  Next to Lamar is Sydney Adger, followed by Todd Alexander and then, A.A. Bradford next to Herb.  These photos were taken for the 1973 Annual Report.   Here is a view of our Dallas Reservations Office taken in late 1973.  That is Original Employee Karen Ordner sitting at the Reservations Desk.  Note the rotary dial phone in front of her.  Employees would enter the flight data on cards and place the cards in a tray system that ran underneath the shelf where the phone is mounted.  Judging from the walls in the background, I think this room was also located in the original Headquarters facility.  The approximate date was determined by using the big wall calendar in the background.   We feature another Original Employee, Dallas Mechanic Jerry Puckett, in the next photo.  I’ve found that photographers often would take photos of Employees who helped out with the publicity photo shoots, and it appears Jerry was tending to the aircraft, which are displayed in the background of the publicity photo at the bottom of the post.  He is standing in front of one of our first three aircraft, N21SW (c/n 20345), that was built for but never delivered to Aloha Airlines.  Under the nose of the aircraft, you can see the engine of the other aircraft used in the shoot, N22SW (c/n 20336).  Air California had been the intended owner of N22SW, but like each of our three original aircraft, it was delivered to Southwest instead of the initial airline. Original Employee Camille Keith was also at the shoot to represent our Public Relations Department.  N21SW wears the revised livery without the “Airlines” titling on the tail.  As far as I can tell, the titles were removed from N21SW and N22SW sometime in 1973. And here is the publicity photo that all the fuss was about.  This duplicates similar shots taken in June 1971 before we began service.  N21SW is in the front, followed by N22SW.  Based on when the “Airline” title was removed from these aircraft, the fact the Flight Attendants are wearing the original uniforms (Flight Attendants changed uniforms in late September 1974), and that both Jerry and Camille are wearing coats, these last three photos probably were taken late 1973 or early 1974.  The camera is looking toward the east, and the photos were taken late afternoon and in the fall or winter because of the long shadows and because Camille is squinting looking into the sun. Individually, these photos document a small moment in time, but as a collection they give us a taste of what it was like to work and travel on Southwest Airlines during a time when we still flew three airplanes to three cities.  The collection is also a landmark on the evolutionary road of change that leads to today. Update:  Original Employee Dan Johnson reminds us that the Southwest dollar bill changer actually dispensed $1.05 in change to "give back the nickle that the DFW machines took."   Looking at the original negative under magnification does indeed show the man holding five coins:  four quarters and a nickle. ... 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

This is a story of a Dallas-based airline that was led by an aviation entrepreneur and a lawyer; it faced a long legal battle with Braniff just to get into the air; it had a highly motivated group of employees; and once it took flight, it faced continued battles to reduce its competitive ability.  No, I’m not talking about Southwest, but, the similarities are almost eerie.  This very brief look at Pioneer Air Lines, the company at which my dad began his airline career, is the followup post I promised a few weeks ago.  The formation of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) in 1938 essentially froze the number of airlines at about a dozen “trunk” carriers, which included familiar names like American, United, TWA, Delta, etc.  The survivors are basically today’s legacy carriers.  In 1939, the CAB created the first airline of a new category of airlines, feeder carriers, to provide service to smaller cities. ESSAIR, the first of this new type of airline, was authorized to begin experimental service from Houston to Amarillo.  Braniff immediately began a legal campaign to keep ESSAIR grounded, which lasted four years.  In the midst of World War II, the CAB ruled in ESSAIR’s favor, but service didn’t begin until August 1, 1945, with a flight from Houston to Amarillo via Austin, San Angelo, Abilene, and Lubbock. As servicemen returned to civilian life, ESSAIR had a ready-made workforce.  One of those men was General Robert J. Smith, who had helped lead the Air Transport Command in North Africa.  Ironically, General Smith’s prewar job was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Braniff.  In addition to leading the fight to keep ESSAIR grounded, he had taken on such luminaries as Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern on Braniff’s behalf.  General Smith partnered with Major Bill Long, a Dallas aviation legend to run Pioneer.  Major Long became Chairman, and General Smith was President of the company. One of the first things they did was to change the company’s name.  ESSAIR stood for Efficiency, Safety, and Speed by Air, and General Smith hated it.  The new name was Pioneer Air Lines.  At the same time, the corporate offices moved to Love Field, even though Dallas was, at the time, an offline city.  Dallas eventually joined the route map, and at its zenith, Pioneer had a route system stretching from Dallas to Albuquerque and El Paso and from Amarillo to Houston. Pioneer upgraded Lockheed 12s for war surplus DC-3s.  About every other year, the CAB added new routes and took away existing routes and added and subtracted intermediate points.  The CAB also enforced restrictions requiring every flight to stop at every station along a route.  Some of these small Texas cities included Mineral Wells, Cisco, and Sweetwater.  These restrictions were designed to limit Pioneer’s ability to compete with Braniff.  In spite of the CAB’s restrictions, people flew Pioneer, and with an 83 percent load factor, the DC-3’s performance was strained.  In 1952, the airline bought and refurbished used Martin 202s (above, taken at Clovis, New Mexico, by my father) from Northwest to compete with Braniff’s Convair 340s, and Pioneer sold its DC-3s to the Air Force.  However, Pioneer’s operating certificates were based on a subsidy from the CAB.  The CAB frowned on the initial high cost of the 202s, and 11 months after they began operation, the CAB ordered Pioneer to discontinue the 202 operations immediately.  This arbitrary decision almost killed the airline (which some say was the intent), and it got to the point where it couldn’t meet the payroll.  This was a hard pill to swallow for a proud company that had been profitable, almost from day one.  Fortunately, C.E. Woolman at Delta purchased spare engines from Pioneer and provided necessary cash flow for the payroll.  (Mr. Woolman also offered to buy Pioneer so Delta could obtain the Dallas to Albuquerque route.) This proud little airline managed to survive with a fleet of leased former United DC-3s, and in June 1954, a few 202s returned during the last year of operation when the CAB finally allowed Pioneer to overfly some smaller cities along a route.  In spite of surviving this near death blow, the airline’s future was limited, and a merger with Continental was consummated on April 1, 1955.  At the time, the two airlines were of similar size and operations.  Pioneer’s Executive Vice President of Marketing, Harding Lawrence, would go on to create Continental’s Golden Jet campaign, and as CEO of Braniff, he would lead the fight to keep another new Texas airline, Southwest, out of the sky. (Thanks to Phoenix Flight Attendant Rick Covington for the first flight envelope above.)   Pioneer really lived up to its name.  As the first feeder, it was later joined by airlines like Frontier, Texas International, Southern, and Allegheny, just to name a few.  Never again would the CAB block feeder carriers from upgrading to modern equipment.  Texas International later acquired Continental, which, in turn, recently acquired United.  Allegheny grew into US Airways.  Like Southwest, Pioneer had a distinctive livery with a big white bison on a blue tail, and it loved to celebrate.  Each year on its anniversary, Pioneer held a big party in Dallas.  In August 1954, Pioneer’s one-millionth passenger received a free set of expensive luggage, and all aircraft carried a sticker (above, with my father to the left) celebrating the fact.  The passenger boarded in Amarillo, so my dad was part of the ceremony.  Most importantly, Pioneer had a proud workforce, who in spite of government intervention, managed to provide a distinctive Customer Service delivery that made it the airline of choice on the routes it served.  General Smith, the charismatic former lawyer, was loved by his people.    Like other members of the greatest generation, Pioneer employees are leaving us all too quickly.  We owe them thanks for paving the way that showed it was possible to change the face of commercial aviation in Texas, and they did it with smiles, dedication, and great Customer Service.  That does sound familiar. ... 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Although many consider me “antique hardware,” I am referring to computer hardware.  The 1970s was a decade of great change for the airline industry.  The first wide-bodied aircraft took to the airways, airline deregulation came about, one airport, Love Field, was reregulated with the Wright Amendment, and the first hardware resembling today’s computers began appearing in airline offices.    Surprisingly, the common teletype seems to have made the big leap to computer-like operation first.  Above is the AT&T Dataspeed 40 teletype terminal.  For years, teletypes provided the most immediate written communication for stock brokers, news agencies, and airlines.  The traditional teletype machines had heavy duty, typewriter-like printers that clanged and banged out messages all day and all night long.  When important news broke, bells would go off.  For extremely important news, five bells would ring alerting people to come read the message immediately.  The Dataspeed 40 changed all of that.  (Doesn’t that name sound like something Clark Griswold would say?  "Come on kids, I plotted our trip on the Dataspeed 40?")   Instead of typing out a message on a ticker tape and feeding that into the teletype as traditional teletypes required, the operator could now compose a message on a television screen and hit send.  The Dataspeed 40’s printer was high speed for its day, and it was a lot quieter than earlier machines because it substituted an early type of electronic print head for the noisy moving type.  It’s amazing to think of all the advances the Bell Labs made, and this is one of them.  This photo appears to have been taken at Headquarters, possibly the Regal Row facility. One of Southwest’s first reservations systems was the infamous Bunker-Ramo.  The user sets featured a tiny screen with letters to the side that represented Southwest cities.  The information contained in the reservations was very rudimentary, just the flights, number of seats, and names.  The photo above is of only part of the Bunker-Ramo main frame.  The first big box behind the Employee contains the flight inventories, and the box next to it, the names of the passengers.  It appears that she is typing some type of instruction.  Keep in mind, every machine you see in this room is part of the Bunker-Ramo mainframe.   Moving to the next photo, she has opened the lid to the flight inventory box, and we see a large reel of magnetic tape.  A second tape sits on top of the adjacent box (the flight names box).  The tape containers are marked with the initials “NCR,” which stand for the National Cash Register Company.  NCR also made the cash registers that our Airport Employees used to sell tickets. A Bunker-Ramo user set is under her left arm.   This November 1977 Dallas Ticket Counter photo (above) shows off both the last version of the NCR cash registers (also known as a “Love Ticket Machine”) that airports used to sell and dispense tickets and a Bunker-Ramo set seen at the bottom of the photo.  At this point, the ticketing system was independent of the reservations system.  The Ticket Agent would confirm through the Bunker-Ramo that a Customer had a reservation, and then the Agent would sell the ticket on the cash register.  The tickets only had destination and fare on them. At the reservations centers, the Reservations Sales Agents were equipped with rotary dial phones and a Bunker-Ramo set.  It looks like each position has a red binder with tabbed information.  And, we close with this look at the Dallas Operations Office during the same period.  More than any of the other photos in this post, this view shows the transition between the chalk and paper era and the new digital age.  The chalk flight board is on the far wall, and the monitors showing each gate are on the ledge in front of the Operations Agents.  As in the photo of the Reservation Center, the phones are all rotary.  A Bunker-Ramo set is at the very bottom of the photo, and a printer is next to it.  Printers back then (including the Dataspeed 40) used rolls of paper, and you had to tear the messages with a straightedge.  The Operations Agent at the bottom is looking at what might be a load message, and the paper beneath that contains hourly weather observations from airports around the system.  The printer is probably attached to a Dataspeed 40 machine, since the Bunker-Ramo didn’t have the ability to generate messages like these.  Another important “electronic” item is the electric pencil sharpener on the shelf in front of the middle Ops Agent, as most forms and calculations were completed in pencil.    It really is amazing how far computer hardware has come in a relatively short time.  Computers were giant, temperamental machines that filled a room.  As late as 1990, a computer/phone/camera that fit in your pocket was something from the comic strips.  When I was with Delta, the smaller airports didn’t begin receiving CRT computer sets until 1980, but the operations computer terminals were still IBM Selectrics.  Even after the changeover to computer screens, computer terminals in reservations centers and at the airport were specialized, bulky sets showing data in black and white, well into the 1990s.  Who would have ever thought a Customer could book and buy travel online back then? ... 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It’s no secret that I love to ride the train, and a few years ago when I heard that the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) was going to build the Green Line on the right of way of the old Katy (Missouri-Kansas-Texas) Railroad branch line along Denton Drive, I got very excited.  The old Katy line runs just across the street from our Headquarters.  But I would still have to close the 20-mile gap from my home just outside of Denton to the DART line.  Thankfully, the Denton Country Transit Authority (DCTA) began rebuilding their portion of the old Katy line from downtown Denton to a connection with DART’s Trinity Mills Station in Carrollton.    Now, on most days, I drive the short distance from our home to the closest station in Denton, where I begin my rail journey to work.  DCTA calls their service the A-Train, and they began operating last June.  They ordered 11 rail diesel units from Stadler in Switzerland, but the last of this order is just now arriving in Denton.  In the meantime, DCTA leased 11 tried and true Budd RDCs (rail diesel cars) from the Trinity Railways Express (above).  These vintage, stainless steel beauties were built by the same company that gave us such classic streamliners as the Burlington Zephyrs and Canadian Pacific’s (now VIA Rails') Canadian.  In fact, for most of their lives, the A-Train’s RDCs worked in Canada linking small communities with big cities.  Riding the RDCs is like stepping back in time to the age of the classic streamliners, and they have a “mainline” railroad feel.   The new cars (above) are gradually being integrated into the fleet, and the one time, so far, that I’ve been able to ride a new Stadler car, it reminded me of train travel in Europe:  clean, quiet, and comfortable.  I really like the design of the Stadler cars, in many ways they are a throwback to the Art Deco streamlined era.  At the Trinity Mills Station, I walk across the platform to DART’s light rail Green Line for the rest of the journey to work.   Whereas the A-Train has an intercity railroad “feel,” DART (above) is very urban.  It reminds me of riding BART in the Bay Area as it is elevated over a section of industrial buildings.  Someone once wrote that riding the train is like travelling through a town’s back yards, and he was right.  You literally look in the back yards of houses and at the backside of businesses.  The view isn’t necessarily pretty, but it is interesting.  (There are still a few areas of “country” on the A-Train route like the Trinity River bottom and across Lewisville Lake.) While my daily two-train commute doesn’t save me time over driving (unless there is a wreck on the freeway), it saves me a whole lot more, starting with my sanity.  It is wonderful to sit down and not have to worry about the jerk tailgating me or the guy who suddenly decides to use my lane, even though I am already occupying the space he wants.  There is no fighting the stop and go traffic on the train, and you can relax, nap, read a book, or just look out the window.  It also saves wear and tear on my car.  Even with a carpool, I was putting about 18,000 miles a year on my car.  Now, it is down to a little less than 10,000 miles a year.  The cost is a lot less too.  Before, I was spending about $70 to $90 a week on gas (depending upon gas prices)—not counting weekend pleasure travels.  My train travel costs about $36.00 a week and my “work” gas is down to about $16 a week.  That doesn’t even include the benefits to the environment from removing cars off the road. I have become part of a community of regular train commuters, and I notice the same people daily on my journey.  The number of people from just my train who detrain at the “Southwest stop” average about 20—that’s 20 fewer cars on the road from just one train and one destination.  And, it’s part of a community in other ways.  During the last Holiday Season, the A-Trains were decorated with handmade decorations (above), and the A-Train crews have learned the “regulars” on their trains.  Admittedly, you give up some freedom when you leave the car at home.  You can’t just decide on the spur of the moment to run errands on your lunch hour; you have to plan them around the times you do drive.  Also, if you don’t bring your lunch, you are pretty well locked into eating at the Employee cafeteria.  But these are easily overcome when you consider that you have given yourself two hours a day free from traffic worries.  If your work schedule and location allow, consider taking the train, it might add years to your life, and it will help the environment too. ... View more

The following contribution comes courtesy of Kevin Bailey, a Volunteer Photographer for the Vietnam War Flight Museum:  A big tip of the hat to Southwest Airlines for sponsoring not only the July 4 Freedom Fest in downtown Houston, but also for sponsoring a pair of beautiful World War II 'Warbird' formations that flew over the crowds in the late afternoon.  Just as the day's music prvided some big sounds, and the night's pyrotechnics had their big bangs, local Warbirds supplied the afternoon's big rumbles. At around 6:15 PM the first group arrived, moving in from the west.  From Town & Country on in, people who were outside and heard the rumble of big piston engines moved like a wheat field in the breeze, turning their heads skyward to see the machines of our Greatest Generation.  In the lead was the majestic, four-engine B-17G 'Thunderbird' heavy bomber from Galveston's Lone Star Flight Museum, easily one of the most recognizeable airplanes around.  On either side were matching twin-engine A-26 Invader attack bombers of the Hobby-based Vietnam War Flight Museum.  A-26s 'Million Airess', once named 'Guns For Hire', and 'Fire Eaters', have an extensive history not only of military service but were also featured prominently in the 1989 firefighter movie 'Always', with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter and John Goodman. The second wave at around 8 PM included Lone Star's B-25 'Mitchell' twin-engine, twin tail bomber, and two TF-51 Mustang single-engine fighters, 'Bum Steer' and 'Galveston Gal'.  Lone Star has a popular program in Galveston where paying customers can ride on flights in several of their Warbirds, from the open-cockpit Stearman trainer all the way up to Thunderbird. I had the singlular thrill of being in the nose of one of the Invaders for the formation, very much on the job photographing the maneuvers of the first wave from a unique perspective.  While July 4 is usually celebrated with picnics fireworks, Southwest has done a very good thing by honoring our men and women in uniform on Independence Day.  It is in no small part that for all these years, we're still here because they were there.  For all our veterans as well as active servicemen and women, thanks again, and thanks always. Kevin Bailey Volunteer Photographer Vietnam War Flight Museum ... 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 the “June is Our Birthday Month” series, we look at a pivotal day in the history of Love Field.  As we saw in earlier posts this month, Love Field in the early 1970s was a busy place.  Airlines like Delta had upgraded their operations with temporary facilities to bridge the days until the new DFW Airport opened.  That day came on Sunday, January 13, 1974, and on that date, Southwest became the sole airline remaining at Love.  Although I’ve covered this before, I recently found unseen negatives documenting the day.  In this first of a two-part series featuring those photos, we begin with what the other airlines left behind. No matter how large the effort to get the word out about major changes, some folks will always remain oblivious.  For those who hadn’t read the paper or watched television news for the preceding month, this sign probably brought some shocking news as they entered the empty main lobby.  “SURTRAN” (for “SURface TRANsportation”) was an attempt to provide bus service between downtown Dallas, Fort Worth, and the new airport.  It also provided service between Love Field and DFW.  (Airtrans—not to be confused with our folks at AirTran—was the name of the people movers that slowly shuttled between the terminals at DFW.) On this Sunday morning after the big move, the main lobby was deserted, except for the iconic Texas Ranger statue standing guard.  For years, car dealers always displayed their latest models in the main lobby, and one dealer has yet to remove his display car on the far right, just in front of the main entrance.  The observation deck can be seen on the mezzanine to the left, with the U.S.O. facility toward the far wall of the building.  On the first floor, underneath the U.S.O. is the main barbershop that, as far as I can remember, had at least ten chairs.  The large main lobby restrooms were next to the lockers on the first floor on the left of the picture.  Another Love Field icon, the large floor map of the world, would have been just in front of the restrooms.  Both the Ranger and the map will be part of the new modernized terminal currently under construction. In the middle of the lobby floor were retail kiosks, and again if my memory serves correctly, the kiosk at the left of the photo sold jewelry.  Just beyond it toward the ticketing wing was a newsstand.  The empty Delta ticket counter is at the back of the photo.  This prime terminal real estate was originally occupied by Braniff until they built their new terminal on the south side of the building.  Then Delta moved into the former Braniff position seen here.  Until recently, Continental Express occupied this space.  I don’t know if you can tell, but the ceiling is filthy; no doubt the result of 14 years of smoking inside the building. Above is the now abandoned entrance to the concourses from the lobby.  A security guard is on duty to keep sightseers and souvenir hunters away from the concourses.  The first doors to the left were the entrance to the dining room, and just beyond those doors is the entrance to the cocktail lounge.  The sign out front still advertises a Bloody Mary, but it’s the loneliest bar in town now. Straight ahead is the North Concourse.  Back when the airport opened, the concourses were named for the colors red, yellow, and green, and each concourse had matching colored tile.  The North Concourse was originally the Yellow Concourse, and the signs to the left and right of the entrance list the airlines on the concourse.  This concourse had Delta, the original Frontier, commuter carriers Altus, Rio, and Davis, and of course, Southwest.  Eastern’s flights left from the very end of the North Concourse, down where our Inflight Training used to be.  Rather than make their passengers walk all the way to the end, Eastern checked their passengers in at the gate position to the right of the photo and bused them to the airplane.  We are now looking toward the main lobby from the current East Concourse.  The photographer is standing where the current concourse security checkpoint is located today.  The brightness down the hall is coming from the windows over the portion of the walkway that goes over the ramp roadway.  January 13, 1974, was a nasty, wet winter day in Dallas.  Outside at Gate #1, we see that American has yet to move all their ramp equipment over to DFW.  Besides all the baggage and freight carts, a couple of tugs and a wide-body container loader are blocking the gate.  Late the previous evening, there was an organized convoy to drive all the ramp equipment over to DFW, and I’m not sure why American failed to move this equipment as part of that group effort.  Since this was now Southwest’s primary gate, we had to have ramp access to board our flights.  Remember this photo because next week, we will show the solution.  The building in the background is where our bag room (we call it “T-point”) is now located.    This has been a quick look at the areas abandoned by the other airlines after their move to DFW.  Next week, we will see how Southwest started to make Love Field into our home on this day. ... 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We continue our “June is our Birthday Month” posts with some artifact gems that Phoenix Flight Attendant and fellow Southwest Avgeek, Rick Covington, shared with me.    (I postponed our look at the 1974 Love Field moving day until next week.)  Let’s begin with the notice below from Dun and Bradstreet.  Even though it carries a stern warning about reproducing, I am hoping that since 41 years have passed, they won’t mind. In my mind’s eye, I have always assumed that Southwest’s Headquarters have always been in Dallas.  But when you consider that Cofounders Herb Kelleher and Rollin King both lived in San Antonio, it would make sense to headquarter there at least until we got off the ground.  It looks like our first permanent “residence” in Dallas was our Maintenance Base, which was located on the north side of Love Field in an old 1920s era hangar.  This notice from May 3, 1971, lets everyone know that the Dallas Hangar is a “branch office,” and our first Vice President of Maintenance, Jack Vidal, was considered to be the “Branch Manager” with purchasing authority. Does this show that Dallas Maintenance is the first and most senior work group in Dallas? As the next notice shows above, the Headquarters moved to Dallas a week later on May 10, about a month before Southwest would begin service on June 18, 1971.  A couple of other interesting items are on this notice:  Under the “Southwest Airlines, Co (INC)” at the upper left is a note saying we were “FKA (formerly known as) Air Southwest, Inc,” and under the red strip at the top is a warning not to confuse this version of Southwest with the one operated by “R.W.K, Inc.”  RWK is Rollin W. King, and it refers to the earlier Southwest Airlines that he operated with Beech 18s from San Antonio to point in South Texas. The photo above from the Southwest Archives compliments Rick’s items, and it shows our very first Flight Attendant (Hostesses then) graduating class.  At least three of the women in the picture are still Employees. Rick has the flight attendant roster for our first full month of operation, July 1971.  The 36 Flight Attendants are split into Teams of three.  There wasn’t a lot to choose from in the way of routes—every line contained Dallas to San Antonio and Dallas to Houston trips.  Only the days off varied.  Even more amazing because items like this are usually trashed to avoid confusion when updates are issued, Rick has the original galley stocking charts from June 1971.  The image above shows the stocking requirements for the front galley.  Someone has written his or her own notes to show where additional items were stored.  “Carrier 1” contained Jack Daniels, Cutty Sark, Bourbon, vodka, and gin plus “funny drinks.”  The aft galley contains only basic soft drinks—Coca Cola, Sprite, ginger ale, tonic water, and club soda.  Juices and Bloody Mary mix are at the top.  On the right are provisions for “Jet Punch” and “Tiki Punch.”  Rick asked Original Flight Attendant Pinka about these mystery drinks, and she remembers that Tiki Punch was a tropical punch concentrate that was mixed with water in the coffee pots and served during taxi-out on the ground.  Jet Punch was mixed with alcohol, and evidently Flight Attendants added their own personal versions of mixers.  Pinka also remembers that the tropical punch was “a mess” because it was so sticky.   Thanks again to Rick sharing part of his collection.  On June 18 remember our Original Employees and all they did to make Southwest Airlines what it is today.  Next week, we will have rare moving day photos … for sure. ... View more

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

Beginning with our first anniversary in June 1972, we proclaimed June to be “Our Birthday Month.”  Last week, I mentioned that I had found a treasure trove of early negatives, and I am excited to share these mostly unseen images as a Southwest birthday gift to you throughout the month.  Ever since I began my first dives through all of our photos, slides, and negatives, I have been looking for images of our initial gates at Dallas Love Field.  While I found some photos from ramp side showing our North Concourse operation, the upstairs gate areas remained a mystery … until now.   We begin with a view that you may actually have seen before in various Southwest locations and publications, although this image comes directly from the original negative.  The scene above is during 1973’s great $13 Fare War when Southwest came up with the idea of giving a fifth of premium liquor (or a leather ice bucket) to Customers who bought the full one-way fare of $26 between Dallas and Houston Hobby.  Until a couple of months ago, I had never put two and two together to realize that, since the fare war was in 1973, this obviously had to be a view of the gate podium on the North Concourse at Love Field.  Note the gate backdrop which has the original “tilted” logo and a digital clocklike display of the departure and arrival time for the next flight.  Keep in mind that, when this gate area opened in 1971, Southwest used flight times instead of flight numbers in many public timetables.  Even though a much degraded copy of this photo ran in the May 4 Flashback Fridays, I wanted to provide you a  clearer, first-generation copy. While the previous photo has been distributed before, I don’t think the photo above has even been seen by anyone other than maybe the photographer before.  We are looking at either the Gate 23 or Gate 25 holding area.  The rail on the left separated deplaning Customers from those waiting to board.  Unlike our current concourse (the West or former American Concourse) with its large picture windows, these Delta gates on the North Concourse had small vertical windows.  (As one of the last modernized concourses, Delta tried to reduce construction costs because they considered this to be a very temporary facility.)  Ironically, for about ten years from 1997 to about 2007, thousands of Southwest Employees attended University for People glasses in this space after it was remodeled for classrooms.  It can barely be seen, but the Delta travel poster on the far wall offers a clue to the gate’s owner.    Another ownership clue is the tail of a Delta DC-9 seen outside one of the windows.  In this blowup, you can also see a group of our Flight Attendants awaiting the outbound flight.  The photo above came from a different negative strip, but it shows the area behind the railing.  The door to the jetbridge is in the upper left corner.  A rope hangs across the opening in the railing for outbound passengers.  This gate mirrors the standard Delta gate design of the period, and it looks a lot like the gates in Delta’s facility at the old terminal in Atlanta.   Even though the photo above isn’t the best quality, it offers the only look at the North Concourse hallway that I have seen.  To the left is the hallway leading down the second story gate area.  The North Concourse consisted of two sections (this section which handled DC-9s and DC-8-51s, and the larger east portion that handled 747s and DC-8-61s in one area, with a large DC-9 holding area beyond that) separated by the old original single level concourse.  At two places in each respective section, hallways that passed over the original concourse connected each section.  This photo looks down the hallway toward the main terminal end of the concourse.  Again, many Southwest Employees will recognize this as the hallway of the University for People.  The University also utilized the original escalator entrance to the upper level and Delta’s concourse ticket counter remodeled to serve as the University’s reception desk.  To the right of the photo, we have a framed photo of one of our 737s wearing the original titles on the gate house wall.   Finally, we go up on the roof for this bird’s eye view of the gate, complete with either N21SW or N22SW wearing original titles.  Behind our aircraft, we see our future gate area, American’s West Concourse.  The peeling paint on the jetbridge shows that Delta obviously is aware that they only have a relatively short time left to use the facility before moving to the new DFW Airport in a few months.  (To be honest, the peeling paint is a surprise because I know too well that Delta used to have a policy that, if rampers had idle time, they were given a paintbrush and a can of paint.)    An American 707 is just to the right of our tail, and next to that is a DC-10.  Next week, we will go outside on the North Concourse, and I think all our Avgeeks will enjoy the view.  Out of the more than 41 years we have operated from Love Field, we only used the gates on the North Concourse for a little less than three years.  Still, it is from that real estate that the first Southwest flight departed on June 18, 1971, and looking at these photos is like looking at our birth. ... 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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

Before the satellite era, local television stations offered viewers a large selection of daytime programs.  Some of these programs became a part of national franchises like Bozo the Clown.  This show began in Chicago, but you could find a local Bozo in a lot of different markets.  Other local programming included dance shows (American Bandstand began as a local Philadelphia show), quiz shows, and children’s shows.  In our early years, local programming was an ideal platform for Southwest because the television stations needed guests, and we needed the free exposure.   One of the big franchise shows was Dialing for Dollars.  Local hosts would show a movie, and during the breaks, they would call someone at random from strips of telephone numbers cut from phone books.  Hopefully, the “dialee” was watching the show because the host would ask the person for the “count” and the “amount.”  The count referred to how far from the top or bottom of the slip the telephone number was.  For example, if the number was nine from the top, the count would be nine.  The amount would be the dollar prize.  If no one guessed correctly, $10 was added to the prize for the next drawing, and pots could get up to $2,000 or so.  The premise was genius because you had to watch the show in order to win money.  In the view above, Flight Attendant Judy Seely visits the host of Houston’s Dialing for Dollars on KTRK, Bob Hilton, to celebrate our second birthday in June 1973.  (Bob seems to be having too much fun, and check out his jacket.)  Southwest was participating in a month-long birthday contest where we gave away a weekend trip for two to San Antonio.  On his desk next to the cake is Bob’s trusty rotary dial phone that was used to call the next contestant.  Since anyone with a phone in his or her name could receive the call, the conversations could be interesting. We returned to KTRK’s Dialing for Dollars a few years later.  Evidently the show had musical guests from time to time because Flight Attendants Vicki Kline and Mary Skwarlo are sharing candy with singer Pat Hamilton during a Valentine’s visit to the show.  This time, the Southwest prize was a weekend trip to Dallas. And then there were the children’s shows.  Once again, KTRK in Houston seemed to have an affinity for Southwest guests.  In the March 2, 2012, Flashback Fridays post,  I showed a photo of Flight Attendant Sally Glenn with a robot on the set of the Cadet Don Show.  First Officer Sam Cohn (above) also made that trip to the Houston show, in 1971 or early 1972.  It looks like Cadet Don (kind of like Darrin on Bewitched, two actors played Cadet Don) is receiving some orders from “headquarters command,” and from the look on Sam’s face, it involves the Southwest 737 model on the desk.  (Note that the model carries the original markings with the word “AIRLINE.”)  The television monitor behind the guys is right out of the 60s, and I have no idea where the robot was. Finally, we close with a longtime Dallas television tradition, Peppermint Place.  The late Jerry Haynes was featured as Mr. Peppermint, and his sidekick was Muffin.  With a thick Texas accent and “mumbly” voice, Muffin often got away with saying things that Mr. Peppermint never could.  For a segment about a child’s first flight, Dallas Ticket Agent Beverly Leflett represented Southwest.  There isn’t a date on the photo, but I am guessing perhaps it is from the late 70s or early 80s.  Muffin is trying to eat a boarding pass to Houston, and this is the first photo I have seen of this style of boarding pass where the top part is perforated and torn off as the Customer boards the airplane.   Like the hot pants era, the era of the locally produced entertainment shows is over.  While these shows didn’t directly reach Southwest’s primary market demographic back then, the business traveler, they did allow us to reach his family in a personal and inexpensive manner.  I have to think the accessibility we showed by participating in these local shows helped us demonstrate how different we were from the “stuffy” other guys. ... 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

Back in December, Southwest Airlines announced that we had signed on to be the launch customer for Boeing’s new 737 MAX variant that will debut in 2017.  The MAX will offer much improved fuel efficiency and environmental performance compared to current 737s, and it will provide great comfort and reliability to our Customers.  Like any new aircraft, some features of the MAX’s design hadn’t been firmed up in time for that first announcement.  One item of speculation among my fellow Avgeeks has been the design of the MAX winglets.  I’ve even seen speculation they might be of the Sprioid design, which is  basically a big “O” on the end of the wing. Well, the answer is in, and the artist’s illustration shows the selected design which will feature an upper winglet similar to those on our current 737s and a smaller, lower winglet at about a 45 degree angle from the wing.  Looking at the other side of the aircraft, we get a good view of the winglet angles.   The three most notable external spotting differences between the MAX and current 737s are visible above.  MAX has a redesigned rear fuselage, the new winglets, and a different engine cowling. The fuselage is more tapered and has a newly designed exhaust for the auxiliary power unit (APU).   While the forward portion of the cowling resembles the current 737, the aft portion features a scalloped shape, which is currently in use on the 787.   And, from the front, the MAX resembles the 737-800, and this is the "face" that for many people describes the jet age.  It is the same forward fuselage used by the 707 and its cousin, the KC-135, and by the earlier 727.  Show this nose to almost anyone anywhere in the world, and they probably will say "Boeing."  Thanks to our friends at Boeing for these amazing computer-generated images.  Their realism is startling, and in this photo, the First Officer is even visible in the cockpit (at least in the larger version of the print).  For more information on the 737 MAX's winglets click here. ... View more

The best part of my job is opening a box of photographs or negatives and finding images that haven’t seen the light of day for decades.  Late last week, I found a box full of some great scenes that I can’t wait to share with you in this and future editions of Flashback Fridays.   Above we see the start of a treasured Southwest tradition and a key annual Culture event, and I wish I had found it before this year’s 39th and Last Chili Cookoff.  This is the First and Last Chili Cookoff from 1973.  Southwest Cofounder Rollin King was one of the judges, and he is in the middle with the white hat and dark jacket.  To his left sharing the winning trophy are Provisioning Employees Ken Hargrove (our current Amarillo Station Leader) and Steve Spurrier (no, not the head football coach at South Carolina) to Ken’s left.  On the far left is another judge, Hondo Crouch, the “Ambassador from Luckenbach, Texas.”  Hondo, who passed away in 1976, was a Texas legend, and he also went by the self-proclaimed titles of “Mayor of Luckenbach” and the “Crown Prince of Lukenbach.”  To Rollin’s right are two more judges, Charlie and Gordon Fowler, sons of Texas chili legend, Wick Fowler.  Take a look at the case of long necked Lone Star beer on the table.  I doubt if those bottles in the carton will still be full when the night is done.   Back in the August 26, 2011, edition of Flashback Fridays, I wrote about the January 1974 weekend when all the other airlines moved from Love Field to the new DFW Regional Airport (it wasn’t called DFW International until later).  That same weekend, Southwest moved its Love Field operations from the original ticketing wing and North Concourse to the baggage claim area and the old American gates on the West Concourse (which are still used by us).  Coincidentally, Super Bowl VIII was being played that Sunday, January 13, in Houston at Rice Stadium.  A temporary ticket counter was set up in the middle of the claim area with two ticketing positions until a permanent one could be constructed.  The picture above shows the back of the temporary counter, and there is so much to see here, I am going to break the photo up into sections. An ash tray in the top of the ticket counter shows how society’s views on smoking have changed since 1974.  The Ticket Agent had to keep her purse with her because the permanent counter facilities had yet to be constructed.  She has a big stack of our original reusable boarding passes.  These passes were laminated paper, and they didn’t carry the big numbers that our later trademark solid plastic boarding passes would feature.  The bottle is some kind of cleaning fluid, and be sure to check out the rotary phone dial. Left of the Agent is one of the original NCR cash registers that dispensed perforated receipts.  The larger portion was used as the ticket, and the smaller end was kept as the receipt.  To the right of the Agent’s head in the background, we see the old tunnels that ran from the baggage claim area to the double-layer parking lot.  These tunnels disappeared when the lot was rebuilt with multi decks. And finally, we close with this mystery man.  I think he may be the comedian and actor Alan Sues from Laugh In fame.  The show had gone off the air in 1972, and he was doing plays in dinner theaters around the country, but I couldn’t confirm that the photo is of Alan.  Either way, the man is wearing a Vikings Super Bowl VIII button, and it looks like he is holding two tickets of some sort.  The man next to him has a Viking “Purple Power” button on his lapel, and a “Sock it to Em Vikes” button on the jacket.  Since “Sock it to me” was a recurring phrase used on Laugh In, it may indeed be Alan Sues.  (The Dolphins beat the Vikings 24 to 7 for a second straight NFL Championship.)   Both of this week’s photos unlock important turning points in our history.  We remind our new Employees why each year’s Chili Cookoff is a named “the XX and Last Chili Cookoff,” by telling them the story of our first Cookoff.  Our financial situation was so perilous in early 1973, we weren’t sure we would be around a year later for a Second Cookoff.  We did survive, even prosper, but the Cookoff’s title reminds us that nothing can be taken for granted.  The photo I found documents that Culture milestone.   In the same vein, the weekend the airlines moved to DFW marks the turning point in Southwest’s development as a singular kind of airline.  This was the beginning of that adventure, which continues today.  Our right to stay at Love wasn’t assured by any means in 1974, and 1979’s Wright Amendment was just around the corner after the rest of America’s skies were liberated by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.  However, those early years after we were all alone at Love really served to define the future nature of Southwest Airlines.  Remarkable in both photos is their candid quality.  I’d wager that none of the Employees in either photo knew that they were involved in a remarkable, singular, and historic event.  It also goes to show that our daily routines can be of great importance to future generations of Southwest Employees. ... 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Since we will be changing locations for our San Antonio Customer Support and Services (CS&S—formerly known as Reservations) Center, I thought this would be a good time to look at the construction photos of the current building.   By the end of the 1970s, our Dallas Reservations Center was out of space, and San Antonio, one of our original cities and the adopted home town of Cofounders Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, seemed like a good choice for a second Reservations Center.  In the photo above from 1981, we see Herb, along with then CEO, Howard Putnam (R), and Bill Franklin, the Executive Vice President responsible for Reservations (L), visiting the construction site for the San Antonio Reservations Center (or as we called it for years, SRC).   The first step was erecting the metal framework comprised of steel girders.  The basic outline of the building is revealed in the photo above.   SRC’s concrete façade was applied later, and be sure to check out the vintage Chevy pick-up in the photo above.  That truck leaves no doubt that this scene is deep in the heart of Texas.   I guess you would call the brick structures shown above a modern day “flying buttress,” and that’s a word I thought I would never use in relation to blogging about an airline.  In this photo, the glass has been installed, and the exterior is pretty much complete.  From all appearances, it looks like the contractors tried to save as many trees as possible on the site. Above, is an interior view of the construction.  I’m guessing that this is an emergency exit door, and there are still construction materials in front of the door.   Once the interior was completed, the Agent positions were arranged theater-style around what we call the “Console.”  The Console is equivalent to the bridge of a ship, and it acts as the facility’s command center.   Next we have a set of before (above) and after (below) photos taken from roughly the same perspective.  In the top photo, taken prior to the facility opening, we see the row of windows just behind the Agent positions.  Below is a photo taken in 1991 for our 20th Anniversary, which was ten years after SRC opened.  (Sherrie Helms is the Employee.)  The outside lighting is considerably more subdued than in the construction photos to improve visibility of the early computer screens. A few years ago, our Reservations Department changed its name to Customer Support and Services to better reflect its role in the Internet age.  At the time, SRC then became the San Antonio Center or just SC, and it has always been an important location because SC houses our Group Desk, and a large portion of our Spanish-speaking CS&S Representatives.  The new SC reflects a continuing commitment to one of our original cities.  Be on the lookout for the new SC location grand opening coming later this year. ... 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

Normally, we rely upon the great folks on our Investor Relations Team to bring you current news about our stock.  But for this week’s Flashback, I found some "really ancient" stock events that may have happened before some on that Team were even born.   The first time I really heard about Southwest stock was when I transferred back to the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) Airport for Delta back in 1990.  One of my coworkers there was bragging about the Southwest stock he bought back in 1971.  In the early 1970s, if Southwest had any airline “friends,” it was Delta.  Delta had provided two of their gates on the old North Concourse at Love Field for Southwest to use, and the original Southwest ticket counter was carved out of the Delta counter.  In fact, Delta had set aside two of their gates in what is now Terminal E at DFW for Southwest’s use.  Of course, Southwest never moved to DFW.  Anyway, my Delta associates in 1990 would talk about Southwest Employees coming into their breakroom in 1971 trying to sell shares of Southwest stock.  In going through our files, I found a photo copy of the prospectus for that original offering of over-the-counter stocks (above).  At the top of the page, it carries a warning:  “These securities involve a high degree of risk.”  That probably was an understatement for a brand new airline with three planes taking on big established names on one hand and fighting for its life in the courts on the other.  The par value of the stock is shown at $1.00 and the public sale price was $11.00.  June 8, 1971 (ten days before we began flying), is the date of the prospectus, and the initial public offering was for 650,000 shares.  I’m sure the original documents are filed somewhere here at Headquarters, but seeing a photo of one of the key documents of our founding gave me goose bumps. On October 25, 1975, our stock was listed on the American Stock Exchange, and the word “LUV” was born as the symbol of our stock.  Then on June 27, 1977, our stock moved over to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the image above is a photo of the document certifying that listing.  With that move, Southwest stock was for sale where companies like General Electric, Ford, and other household company names listed their stocks. That was a very big event in our history, and President Lamar Muse was on the floor of the exchange with NYSE Chairman William Batten (left) and a representative from a brokerage company on the right.  Almost six years to the day after we first began to operate, we had graduated to the “big league” of financial markets.  More than that, these photos represent another progression of how Southwest began to change and mature during the 1970s. ... View more

An icon of Southwest’s early days is our Flight Attendants with their hot pants.  Our original uniform featured brightly colored hot pants and tops, white boots, and a white belt.  A mini skirt was a slightly later uniform option.  In 1974, a new variation on the hot pants theme was issued with rust colored hot pants and tops and an orange blouse featuring white polka dots.    We were sad to learn that the designer of the 1974 polka dot uniform, Emanuel L. “Randy” Randazzo Jr., passed away here in Dallas recently.  Besides his early association with Southwest, Mr Randazzo had a long and distinguished design career, and our thoughts are with his family.  ... View more

In my recent “file diving,” I’ve uncovered some interesting photos that, by themselves, couldn’t support an entire post.  However, they are interesting enough to be shared, so I put this “hodgepodge” post together in the spirit of the old variety shows that once were a network television staple—a little Topo Gigio, bit of Señor Wences, and close with The Beatles.   We open with the bevy of beauties above.  It dates from the early 1970s (probably 1973), even before the DFW Airport opened.  We have Flight Attendants from four of the airlines serving Dallas wearing United Fund sashes in support of the annual United Way drive.  Southwest Hostess Janice Kingsley on the left is joined next by a Braniff Hostess, then a Delta Stewardess, and a Continental Hostess, and I think the uniforms reflect the personalities of the various airlines back then.  A key point of the photo is that it shows our concern for our communities stretches back to the very beginning of our history.  On a personal note, three of these four airlines have played an important role in my life. The four airlines also had deep roots with Dallas.  Besides Southwest of course, Braniff was headquartered in the city.  Delta's very first flight originated at Love Field (Atlanta would join their system a few years later), and Continental had merged in 1955 with Pioneer Air Lines, which was headquartered at Love Field. Next from 1977, we have a valuable fashion lesson—never mix patterns.  If you haven’t gone cross-eyed from those polka dots and shamrocks, here is the caption that ran in our inflight magazine, the Southwest Airlines Magazine: From about the same period, we have the following photo from our Lubbock Station: The Ticket Agent in the photo is a friend of mine, Cynthia Penley, who is currently the Executive Assistant for Bob Montgomery, our Vice President Airport Affairs.  Cynthia had won cash in a program to come up with money-saving solutions, and this photo, which was shot at the Lubbock Ticket Counter, was for our Employee magazine LUVLines.  It’s one of the few early photos I have found of our Lubbock operation. The photo above offers three aeronautical oddities sure to please any “avgeek.”  The 737 wears the Belgium registration, OO-TEM, and it was leased from Belgium’s Trans European Airways from 1981 to 1983.  I’m guessing this was taken early in the lease before Southwest titles could be applied to it.  The middle airplane is a Super DC-3.  It was an attempt by the Douglas Company to update the basic DC-3 after World War II with a longer fuselage, a square tail, and more powerful engines.  With three examples, Capital was the only commercial operator, but the US Navy used about 100 of them as the C-117.  Later, they became executive transports.  The other rarity, at least for a US airport at this date is the Vickers Viscount 700 on the far right.  The British-made Viscount was the world’s first successful jet-powered aircraft (it was a turboprop), and the 700 was widely used by foreign airlines like British European (BEA), Air France, and Air Canada.  Ironically, given the Super DC-3’s association with them, Capital had a large fleet of Viscount 700s here in America.  After service with United (who merged with Capital), many of the 700s were, like the Super DC-3, used as executive transports.  Even the late singer, Ray Charles, owned one.  From machines with long lives like the Super DC-3 and the Viscount 700, we close with “less-than-classic” Gremlins and Pacers.  Back in 1976, our Marketing Employees acquired these American Motors cars for sales calls, and they were painted in Southwest colors.  I’ve always wondered what kind of confidence they instilled in a potential new Customer as they rolled up to the door on sales calls.  I guess that’s one of the fascinating contradictions with history, sometimes you drive a Gremlin, and other times you are carried by a thoroughbred like the 737. ... View more

I’ve been spending a ton of time lately looking over our photo collection (and trying to organize the beast), and these photos have two things in common:  they were taken in the mid-70s, and they all involve Love Field.  We start with a photo that was taken before Love Field underwent its first modernization with the addition of the current silver façade.  The first photo depicts the original red and green exterior from 1958.    When the other airlines moved to the DFW Airport in January 1974, the main lobby wasn’t needed by Southwest for our relatively small number of flights at the time.  The City of Dallas used the expanse of the main lobby to open an ice skating and roller skating facility called “LLOVE.”  Take a look at the small blue sign under the “FI” in “FIELD.”  That is the sign for the skating center.  I am still looking for photos of the interior of LLOVE, but I haven’t been lucky yet.     Now, we move inside and take a look from the floor up at our ticket counter in the original baggage claim wing.  Again, when the other airlines moved out, the original ticketing wing was on the other side of the empty lobby, so our ticket counter moved to the baggage claim wing to be close to our gates.  Even though the counter was in a new location, it utilized the interior façade (the area with the Southwest name) and what looks to be the ticketing positions from the original ticketing wing.  (Can anyone confirm that these items were moved to this area?)  I hope you can see how dirty the ceiling is, but remember that, back then, smoking was allowed everywhere in the building.     Let’s move around behind the ticket counter to see our Ticket Agents (that was their title back then) serving our Customers.  When talking about this era at Southwest, most people mention our Flight Attendants, but our Ticket Agents also were exclusively female the first years.  Their uniforms were similar to the Flight Attendants.  This photo offers an oblique view of the departure board, and it appears there are about 20 or so daily flights.  Illustrating the consolidation of the airport facilities that I mentioned previously, the rental car counters are across from the Southwest counter, and beyond the far end of the ticket counter is the claim area. Not only does this photo document a moment in time of the building’s history, it documents our Employees in their work day from long ago.  Regular Flashback Fridays readers know that I am partial to these “slice of life” candid photos from our early days.  Here are three additional photos in that vein from the same era.     In our early days, we featured our Flight Attendants (they were called Hostesses back then) in glamorous poses for advertising and promotional purposes.  They really were the “face” of Southwest.  That’s why I like the photos above and below, because they show our Flight Attendants “off stage,” if you will.  This is a view of our Hostess Lounge at Love Field, a place where Flight Attendants could relax before their flights or between trips on their schedule.  The Flight Attendant in the background checks her appearance in the floor-length mirror, and the Flight Attendant in the foreground holds a piece of paper.  Note the uniform hat on top of the bag to the right of the photo.  The hat paid homage to traditional Flight Attendant uniforms.     The uniforms in these two photos were introduced in 1977, so that helps us date the scenes.  Above is a view of the lounge from the other direction.  The Flight Attendant at the front left is updating her manual, and it looks like the manual for the Employee on the right is on the coffee table.  On the wall in the background is a bulletin board, and my guess is that it probably has stuff for sale and requests to trade lines.  Like the photo of the ticket counter ceiling, the ash trays on the table reflect a different attitude toward smoking.     The candid work shot above is from a slightly earlier era than the others.  My guess is that it was taken not too long after the airlines moved to DFW in 1974.  We see a Flight Crew beginning their work day as they climb the stairs up to the cab of the jetbridge.  (Note that the jetbridge was had a paint scheme similar to our aircraft livery.)  Because two of the Flight Attendants are wearing coats, the day was probably chilly.  The aircraft is N24SW, and since that airplane was delivered on September 18, 1974 (my 22nd  birthday), we can probably narrow the date down a bit more to the fall of 1974 or winter of 1975.  Fast forward to years after these photos were taken—Love Field is in the midst of a massive rebuilding; our Employees long ago exchanged hot pants for slacks and polo shirts; and our first 737-800 was recently delivered.  There is one thing that hasn’t changed though, and that is the Warrior Spirit of our Employees as they go about their daily duties.  ... View more