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What do ZZ Top, Modern Lighting, Philadelphia, and a sesquicentennial have in common? Sesquicentennial? My guest on this, the 150th episode of Red Belly Radio, is Bob Montgomery. Bob is the VP of Airport Affairs. This means he knows everything about most airports (that we fly to) but I talked to him about Love Field and the construction going on there now. ZZ Top? Love Field had one of the first moving sidewalks anywhere. Billy Gibbons, one of the bearded guitarists of ZZ Top, used to be in a band called the Moving Sidewalks. I quiz Bob about that. Modern Lighting? If you have ever been to Love Field you may have noticed the lighting at the corner of the terminal by gates 3, 4, 5. Have you ever seen light fixtures like those anywhere else? Clearly it was someone’s idea of modern and apparently unique to Love Field. In all fairness, it would probably be a very dark corner without them. Texas Ranger? Not a baseball question--but a statuary issue. Bob answers what has and has and will happen to the statue of that Texas Ranger at Love Field. Philadelphia? One of the great visuals of Love Field is a world map in Terrazzo. Since the airport was first build a few borders have changed, a few countries have different names, and my favorite part: Philadelphia is missing the second “L.” Perhaps a difficult word to spell--or perhaps it was done on purpose? The text and Terrazzo are very similar in color--this photo has been altered to show the lettering. Listen to all 150 episodes of Red Belly Radio which is a podcast and is available as a click and listen here on SWALife, or you can subscribe to the RSS fee via iTunes. By subscribing, new episodes will be delivered to your iPod. Just search Red Belly Radio or Southwest Airlines in iTunes and look under Podcasts. ... View more

Is this podcast timely? Yes. Accurate? Well, I really don't know. Some years ago an unknown group or individual with seemingly too much time on their hands decided to apply their math and physics skills to Santa and his reindeer. Easy enough. Just run the numbers and report it. For instance one part of this podcast reports: Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). The research staff at Red Belly Radio was unable to track down an exact date or author(s) of this work. Although in one case, a web site credited faxing (remember that?) to its first form of distribution, which could predate the World Wide Web. Many people do not know that the Internet existed before the Web. It originally connected military installations and later universities, so my guess would be that some math and/or physics majors knocked this out one night after a few libations and not our military who were busy keeping us safe. As for the facts, I have not verified them. Now, lest anyone think the numbers read in this podcast are real I offer this: If I tried, I don't think I could have ever gotten to these numbers. And the fact that I could probably have never get there, pretty much assures I will never check to see if it is correct. The RBR research department could not find any rebuttals or re-calculations of this early effort. BTW, the research department I credit is me doing a Google search. It is all in fun, please enjoy. Happy holidays. Red Belly Radio is a podcast and is available as a click and listen here on SWALife, but you can also subscribe to the RSS fee via iTunes. By subscribing, new episodes will be delivered to your iPod. Just search Red Belly Radio or Southwest Airlines in iTunes and look under Podcasts. ... View more

Recently, I had the chance to talk with Ellen Torbert, our Vice President Diversity & Inclusion, at the Southwest Airlines Diversity Summit hosted at our Headquarters in Dallas. I have known Ellen since I started with Southwest Airlines in 1991, when we worked at the Dallas Reservations Center. In this episode of Red Belly Radio, Ellen shares her thoughts on Diversity and Inclusion; have a listen, I think you will like what she has to say.    Red Belly Radio is a podcast and is available as a click and listen here on SWALife, but you can also subscribe to the RSS fee via iTunes. By subscribing, new episodes will be delivered to your iPod when they are released. Just search Red Belly Radio or Southwest Airlines in iTunes and look under Podcasts. ... View more

You know, this is a pretty cool Company. I have worked at a number of different places in several industries and Southwest has them beat. But as with most things in life, this job is what you make of it.  Last year our Community Relations and Giving Team challenged us to input the multiple hours many of us spend every year volunteering for nonprofit organizations. You may remember Gary speaking about it in his Message To The Field—in fact, for 2012, he charged each Employee to volunteer one hour per quarter! The contest was simple enough. Click on a pledge button, record 40 hours volunteering during our 40th year (2011), and if completed, be entered in a contest where the 40 winners and their guests would head Seattle to pick up a new 737-800 in 2012.  The first night there, and during Seattle's most beautiful time of the year, Boeing hosted a dinner cruise around Puget Sound.  The next day we had a tour around Renton Field, where the 737s are assembled (sorry, no photography was allowed). Later that evening, the group enjoyed a delicious dinner at a place called FareStart, which was a really cool and successful restaurant (and also a nonprofit organization) that helps people down on their luck with training to enter the hospitality industry.  On August 8, we flew home on Aircraft #8316.  Most of us had never flown on a new plane, much less a brand new -800! The trip was fantastic, the Crew was great, and I hope you like this video. For me, it served as a great reminder of a Company that is proud of its Employees who give back to their communities. ... View more

What’s it like to get to tour the Oshkosh airshow?  Well, in early August  (Ok, really late July) I went to the EAA Airventure show in Oshkosh. But I wasn’t there by myself—a couple contest winners joined in on the fun as well.  Simple enough, people entered a sweepstakes at southwest.com. To enter, it took little time and required no math. Jennie and Joe from the Chicago area won! For their effort, they got to fly on the Southwest Airlines charter from Chicago Midway to the show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and hang out for the day. I’m pretty sure a free T-shirt was involved, but they also got to see a lot of cool aircraft and get a little sun burned. Listen to this episode to hear how their day went and what they got to do that most of us never get to experience. ... View more

For yet another Super Saturday, Southwest burst onto the scene of the World's Greatest Aviation Celebration.  Festival-goers were able to tour the plane, take home some Southwest swag (including "new plane smell" car fresheners), and experience a little of that Southwest Hospitality.   ... View more

This episode of Red Belly Radio was recorded at the Center for Alternatives to Summer TV Reruns, (also known as the little studio where we record all sorts of stuff.) Why is this important? Because This episode is about the new TLC show On The Fly and two of the Employees who are featured! I’ve already done the legwork for you. I searched TV Guide and found that this summer, most channels are showing reruns! That means you are free to watch On The Fly every Thursday at 9/8 central--(that’s 8:00, Herb time) or set your DVRs and watch at your leisure. And when you watch, you will see Jennifer and Zaneta. I recently spoke with these two ladies and I can see why the producers wanted to follow them around. A big thank you to them and all of the Employees who volunteered to have a camera crew record their work days ... View more

What’s that? You have never heard of Red Belly Radio? After all, this is the 145th episode. I started Red Belly Radio several years ago and it was a great success. But as successes often does, I became a victim of it and had more on my plate than I could handle. Anyway, the podcast is back and you can look forward to a new release every month. This show is about the 737-800. I sat down and spoke with Captain Tim Leonard who, in addition to being a pilot, is a Director in Flight Operations. But in addition to all that, Tim knows about the -800 and was willing to share and answer my extremely well thought-out and researched questions. BTW, Red Belly Radio is a true podcast and is available as an RSS fee via iTunes. By subscribing, new episodes will be delivered to your iPod. ... View more

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been close to four months since we launched the All-New Rapid Rewards program! On this episode of Red Belly Radio I interview our Director of Rapid Rewards, Jonathan Clarkson, to get an update on how the new program is performing three months after the launch. As you all know, revamping our frequent flyer program and rolling it out was no small task. In fact, it represents the largest new product launch in our history, and it was a massive undertaking across the entire Company. ... View more

When Southwest (and I assume other airlines) opens a new city, we often send an airplane with some people to get both the airplane and the people to the new city. The people being moved might be people from Communication to deal with media in that new city, a Flight Crew to fly the plane the next day, someone from Fuel Management to coordinate fuel stuff, or maybe a videographer—that’s where I came in. And of course the plane has to get there too so that there is a plane for the next day to whisk our Customers and their free bags away on the first day of service. A flight like this is called a Ferry Flight and on our most recent flight from DAL to EWR, we had a group of recently-trained Ramp Agents. This group did not make up all of the Rampers in EWR, but it was all of the New Hires from New Jersey. Being the nails-tough journalist that I am, I included a question about how they feel when New Jersey is depicted on shows like The Housewives of New Jersey, or The Jersey Shore—their response? Well check it out. ... View more

Have you ever played the basketball game "Horse?" it may been called "Pig" or any other number of animals or terms, but you play it by making a trick or difficult shot and the other person has to match it or he/she gets a letter. Each miss earns a letter and the first to miss enough to spell the word loses. So imagine playing with some guys who have hit shots (using regulation basketballs and hoops) from the top of Cowboy's Stadium down to the field? Or from a small airplane down to the ground? Yep, they have done that! We invited Dude Perfect to Southwest Airlines and allowed them to shoot some hoops. This collection of videos will show Dude Perfect hitting some really cool shots and each video will only get more amazing--so keep watching. In the mean time, Red Belly Radio was on hand to get an interview with two of the members, Tyler and Corey. These guys don't know the meaning of "Can't." ... View more

This February, Southwest Mechanics competed in Las Vegas to see if they could come up aces in the AMTSociety Skills Competition. Did the defending champions hit the jackpot? Find out in this fun video! ... View more

Have you ever wondered how Southwest Mechanics compare to mechanics at other carriers? Aircraft Maintenance Professionals met last week in Las Vegas and a team of our Southwest Mechanics showed their talent in the fourth annual AMT Society Skills Competition. Teams from China, Mexico, Australia, and the US competed. This was Southwest's second year to compete and they went into Sin City with a perfect 1 and 0 record. When it was said and done our Southwest mechanics still have that perfect record but now it is two wins! You can't have a successful team without a coach and on this episode of Red Belly Radio I interview the undefeated coach, Tom Zollars, who reveals an exclusive announcement about next year's event. ... View more

Colleen Barrett is one of the founders of Southwest. She worked at the law firm with Herb Kelleher even before Southwest’s first lawsuits and flights. She is now our President Emeritus and know a lot of stuff. Recently I was called upon to shoot some video of Colleen to play for a new class of Flight Attendants, and this audio is from that. Hear her talk about her visions about customer service of 40 years ago (I’ll give you a hint: it hasn’t changed a bit); a recap of our early newspaper ads to hire Flight Attendants; and who was actually flying Southwest in the early days. ... View more

By now you have probably seen posts about who won the Heroes of the Heart for this year. Every Valentine’s day, for 17 years, since 1992, Southwest Airlines has announced the winner of the Heroes of the Heart award. Our Culture Committee and Colleen started this as a special tribute to a behind-the-scenes star workgroup that does not have direct Customer Contact. So who was the18th winner? There were a lot of great groups to choose from, but you’ll have to listen to this episode of Red Belly Radio to get the full scoop. ... View more

Red Belly Radio is a podcast that is available on iTunes and can be listened to on our corporate blog, Nuts about Southwest and is available to Southwest Employees through our company intranet SWALife. I say this because some of the listeners of this quality program may not have seen the new look of our blog. Either Employees who listen to Red Belly Radio via SWALife, or people who subscribe to the RSS feed via iTunes. If you haven’t seen it lately, it got a refresh, or as they say in Hollywood “Had a little work done.” We recruited a number of new Employee-bloggers who got together to see the new look and talk about the project. I interviewed four of them about what they might be writing about in the next weeks and months. While I was at it, I give a nod to Bill Murray and Puxatony Phil. ... View more

This episode of Red Belly Radio was recorded shortly after 2010 fourth quarter earnings were released. I got to sit down with our Chairman, President, and CEO, Gary Kelly and talk about our profit for the quarter and for the year. We also talk about fuel hedging and about some of the changes coming in 2011 and 2012. Give it a listen. This Red Belly Radio includes references to non-GAAP results. A reconciliation of Southwest’s non-GAAP results to GAAP results is available on the Investor Relations section of southwest.com. From Gary Kelly’s Office. No, really! You’re listening to Red Belly Radio! Steve: Hello and thank you for listening to Red Belly Radio. My name is Steve Heaser. You know, for every quarter, publicly traded companies, like Southwest, have to report their earnings. This is for the company’s shareholders, as well as Wall Street and the general public to know how the company’s doing. And that means that for the fourth quarter of each year, a company also reports annual earnings. Well, for Southwest Airlines, our annual report on earnings was on January 20th and I actually got a few minutes to speak with Gary Kelly to talk about our earnings and what 2011 might be looking like. Here goes… Steve: Earlier you said that this job is fun when the news is good and not so much when it’s bad. So how’s your day going to go today Gary? Gary: Oh it’s a great day Steve. You know, actually telling the truth, I love Southwest Airlines every day. Every day is a good day at Southwest Airlines. But in terms of sharing the news, obviously it’s a lot more fun to share good news. 2010 was a great year and we accomplished a lot. It was never ‘in the bank’ that we would have that kind of a year especially on the heels of the terrible recession that we faced in 2008-2009. I’m very proud of our Employees. They worked extremely hard. We’re turning out record load factors and I’m sure our Employees in Operations all know that. But what a wonderful challenge. If you think about the opposite, where we had Customers that were not liking Southwest Airlines, and moving away from us to our competitors, that would be a problem. So, we have a nice problem here which is we have more Customers than we’ve ever had before. That does present some challenges that we need to be realistic about, that we need to address and we need to work together. That’s what our Employee, Warrior Spirits are all about and again, all I can do today is just really praise them all and thank you all. And I’m just very, very proud of these 2010 results. It was a very solid profit, we had $115 million in the fourth quarter, and $550 million for the year, and all those sound like huge numbers and it’s a comfortable profit but we’re only about two-thirds of the way there in terms of hitting our profit goal – really a profit requirement in order to buy airplanes so we have a ways to go but the good news is that we’re making really, really good progress. Steve: Well how does this compare to other airlines? Is Bags Fly Free really helping? Gary: Bags Fly Free is a grand-slam homerun and I’m real proud of our current campaign with No Change Fees. I think that that will prove as successful. It is a wonderful way to put our money where our mouth is with our Customers and really set ourselves apart from the rest of the industry. Which shows very poorly in brand rankings, whereas Southwest shows very, very high in something that our People can all be very proud of. We’re winning more Customers because we don’t charge those fees. I would much rather have a whole Customer paying us the whole fare, instead of one lousy bag fee. And that’s exactly what’s happening and that’s one reason why our profits are so good. The rest of the industry is doing a descent job of turning out profits finally, but not with the consistency that Southwest does. And of course we all know that they do that with much lower wage rates. So, where would you rather be, you know, at Southwest, or Brand X? Here we’re proud of what we do and our Employees are rewarded for that and our Customers think very highly of us. Steve: I tend to think of only one answer for this – and I see it every day when I fill up my car. Is it costing us more to fill up our airplanes? Gary: Unfortunately it is, you know. And were it not for higher gas prices, I would be really bullish about 2011. We would have a really nice increase in earnings, I think, in 2011 compared to 2010. But the dose of reality is crude oil prices. They’re up 20% at this point versus a year ago, and that makes it really tough. We’ll have a challenging first quarter. We need to be profitable obviously for a whole list of reasons and every year we need to…, you know our Employees want their pay to go up every year, is a way to think about it and the only way to do that successfully over time is for our earnings to go up every year and that’s why it’s important to all Southwest Warriors that we keep our costs low, do all we can to be as fuel efficient as possible and that’s the one cloud overhanging 2011 at this point. Steve: Are we still hedging much fuel, going forward? Gary: We are, and when you talk about what we need to do to manage our fuel costs, it’s really a three or a four pronged approach. Number one, is we do need to hedge and put as much price protection in as possible. Hedging is not the total answer, and it’s costly and it carries some risks, so it has to be managed very, very carefully. To just put hedging in perspective though, over the last decade, we’ve saved about $4 billion with hedging, and that literally translates in to our being able to afford purchasing, about 130-140 aircraft. So had we not hedged in other words, you’d see a fleet that was much smaller and far fewer jobs than what we have today, so it kind of puts in perspective the value that hedging brings to the Company. And it blunts the effect, in an immediate sense of a sharp spike in fuel prices, so we do that. We’re about 65% hedged in 2011, and all the way out through 2014. But we also have a lot of fuel conservation efforts underway. We’ll have to have revenue increases to offset that increase cost or else our earnings will go down substantially. So you will see fare increases from time to time as a consequence, a direct consequence of higher gas prices. And then finally over time we’ll need to continue to work together to find ways to get Southwest Airlines more efficient, more reliable, more on time and more productive, and that’s what we’ll need to do. Steve: Have we ever had quarters, or even a year where hedging made the difference of a profit or loss? Gary: Oh, absolutely. Many, many quarters in several years over the last decade we would not have been profitable without hedging. Steve: And we talk about hedging, we’re talking about Jet-A fuel, not crude. Because you watch crude closely. Gary: We actually do use crude oil as the proxy for jet fuel; mainly because jet fuel is not traded in the financial markets, at least in a cost effective way. Whereas crude oil is traded very widely and there’s a close distillate of crude oil – gasoline being a distillate as an example, but heating oil, home heating oil is actually very close to jet fuel. Jet fuel is a kerosene-like distillate, and so heating oil does trade widely and we also use heating oil as a proxy for jet fuel. Steve: Gosh, a lot of changes coming this year. It’s only the first couple of weeks into the year and we’ve got Rapid Rewards. I understand we’ve actually ordered some -800 planes, but they’re not coming until 2012. But, a lot of changes coming this year, huh? Gary: Well, there’s a lot of construction that’s underway in 2011 I think is a way to visualize it. There will be a lot of effort in 2011 to manage our operation on a day-to-day basis. We’ve got challenges presented with more connecting passengers and record load factors and we will need to attend to that and you’ll see a lot of effort applied there. We will roll out our All-New Rapid Rewards Program in about six weeks, March 1st, so that’s very exciting. That will obviously be a lot of effort, a lot of effort’s gone in to building it and now we need to do the hard work and roll it out for our Customers , so that’s very exciting. But in the meantime, we’ll be constructing the capability to operate -800s. There are twenty that are firmly ordered for delivery in 2012, very exciting. I think the -800 will become an important part of our fleet and our future. We’ll also of course be closing I hope, on the AirTran transaction in the second quarter and that will be real work for us in 2011. The integration work of course will be later after we close but that work will be underway. Then finally we’ll begin probably more seriously the work to replace our reservation system which creates capabilities, if nothing else it brings us international capabilities for the future, so that will be very exciting as well. Steve: Gary, thank you so much for being my guest today. Gary: You bet’cha Steve – anytime my friend. Steve: We’ll see you around. Well that does it for this episode. Red Belly Radio is a trademark of the Southwest Airlines Company. This episode is copyrighted 2011. The CEO, the President, and the Chairman of the Board, that’s all Gary if you didn’t pick up on that, has indicated that we have come to the conclusion of this podcast. Please turn off and stow all portable electronic devices. Important Information for Investors and Stockholders The communications contained in Red Belly Radio do not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval. The proposed acquisition of AirTran Holdings, Inc. (“AirTran”) by Southwest Airlines Co. (“Southwest”) will be submitted to the stockholders of AirTran for their consideration. In connection therewith, Southwest has filed a registration statement on Form S-4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) that includes a proxy statement of AirTran that also constitutes a prospectus of Southwest. Southwest and AirTran also plan to file other documents with the SEC regarding the proposed transaction. SOUTHWEST URGES INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF AIRTRAN TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the proxy statement/prospectus and other documents containing important information about Southwest and AirTran, as such documents are filed with the SEC, through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov/. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Southwest are available free of charge on Southwest’s website at http://www.southwest.com/ under the tab “Investor Relations” or by contacting Southwest’s Investor Relations Department at (214) 792-4415. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by AirTran are available free of charge on AirTran’s website at http://www.airtran.com/ under the tab “Investor Relations” or by contacting AirTran’s Investor Relations Department at (407) 318-5188. Southwest, AirTran and certain of their respective directors and executive officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the stockholders of AirTran in connection with the proposed transaction. Information about the directors and executive officers of Southwest is set forth in its proxy statement for its 2010 annual meeting of shareholders, which was filed with the SEC on April 16, 2010. Information about the directors and executive officers of AirTran is set forth in its proxy statement for its 2010 annual meeting of stockholders, which was filed with the SEC on April 2, 2010. These documents can be obtained free of charge from the sources indicated above. Other information regarding the participants in the proxy solicitation and a description of their direct and indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, is contained in the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials filed with the SEC. ... View more

We use a lot of acronyms around here. Usually, they're three-word terms shortened down to a three letter acronym or as I call it, a TLA. On Red Belly Radio this week, I'll explain one of the TLAs you may have been hearing about lately--RNP. While it can stand for Really Nice Passengers, it can also stand for Required Navigation Performance. My guest is David “Fig” Newton and he knows WAY more about this than we have time for in this episode, but if you want to learn about how it works and what it does, this is the podcast to listen to. ... View more

My guest on Red Belly Radio this week is David “Fig” Newton and he knows WAY more about this than we have time for in this episode, but if you want to learn about how it works and what it does, this is the podcast to listen to. My guest on Red Belly Radio this week is David “Fig” Newton and he knows WAY more about this than we have time for in this episode, but if you want to learn about how it works and what it does, this is the podcast to listen to. ... View more

[asset|aid=240|format=image|formatter=asset|title=RBRiPodLogoSmall.gif|width=180|height=179|resizable=true|align=right]As a Southwest Employee, I find myself talking about this company at a lot of occasions from parties to soccer games. I’m sure my Coworkers have similar experiences when a new acquaintance learns where we work, they inevitably want to know how much it costs to go to Vegas, or (in my case) if I’m a pilot. (Yes, gender stereotypes run deep.) So when I heard we were changing our Rapid Rewards program, I could just picture myself having to learn all about some complex system so that I could answer questions intelligently, or simply stop going to parties—not an option! But wait! This new system is great and our web site makes it easy! It’s not based on miles or credits, but points. This episode of Red Belly Radio is about the new Rapid Rewards program and my guest is Ryan Green from Marketing. No one knows more about this new program than Ryan. Give it a listen and you can talk to acquaintances and sound like an expert, too. ... View more

This episode of Red Belly Radio is about the new Rapid Rewards program and my guest is Ryan Green from Marketing. No one knows more about this new program than Ryan. Give it a listen and you can talk to acquaintances and sound like an expert, too. This episode of Red Belly Radio is about the new Rapid Rewards program and my guest is Ryan Green from Marketing. No one knows more about this new program than Ryan. Give it a listen and you can talk to acquaintances and sound like an expert, too. ... View more

Foodie Mary Bigham travels on Southwest Airlines to Denver, CO for a day-long food adventure featuring the Southwest Porch and ice skating rink at Skyline Park, Victory Beer cocktails, gourmet hot dogs, exotic meats and delicious treats. ... View more

My guest this week on Red Belly Radio is Brooks Thomas who works in our Emerging Media group and one of his duties is to help keep up with our ever-growing Facebook page. Hear him talk about the Company page and our newest effort, city-specific Facebook pages. The Southwest Airlines Facebook page recently crossed the 1,000,000 followers mark. That is a lot of people and they all have one thing in common—they like Southwest Airlines! ... View more

My guest this week on Red Belly Radio is Brooks Thomas who works in our Emerging Media group and one of his duties is to help keep up with our ever-growing Facebook page. Hear him talk about the Company page and our newest effort, city-specific Facebook pages. My guest this week on Red Belly Radio is Brooks Thomas who works in our Emerging Media group and one of his duties is to help keep up with our ever-growing Facebook page. Hear him talk about the Company page and our newest effort, city-specific Facebook pages. ... View more

Have you ever learned a new word and then you start hearing it all the time? A few years back I learned the word “raconteur.” It is probably French in origin, but it means a talented story teller and retired Captain Dick East fits the bill.   This is the third and last part of story-telling session with Dick East and Houston Ronald McDonald House co-founder Liz Kelly.  He is quite the raconteur and in this installment, hear Dick tell about flying the Spirit of Hope, which is one of our aircraft dedicated to the Ronald McDonald House and the story of his first visit to the original Ronald Mcdonald house in Philadelphia.   Dick also tells the story about his last flight before retirement and some of the surprises along the way. ... View more

This is the third and last part of story-telling session with Dick East and Houston Ronald McDonald House co-founder Liz Kelly.  This is the third and last part of story-telling session with Dick East and Houston Ronald McDonald House co-founder Liz Kelly.  ... View more

Can you name the fastest-growing city in our Company’s history?  That is if you call 150 flights a day and 500 Employees in less than five years fast. Your Coworkers in Denver already know the answer, as does anyone who read the title of this blog. This episode of Red Belly Radio is about Denver! Southwest started service on January 3, 2006, and it has been going strong ever since. On this episode of Red Belly Radio I talk to Chris Mainz who knows all things Denver. We talk about the rapid growth, new service, the Denver Porch, the Southwest Ice Rink, and of course the forthcoming special pushback nicknamed the “Nug Tug.” ... View more

Can you name the fastest-growing city in Southwest’s history?  That is if you call 150 flights a day and 500 Employees in less than five years fast. Denver Employees already know the answer, as does anyone who read the title. ... View more

One of the best current online tributes to our Veterans is Radney Foster’s moving YouTube video, “Angel Flight,” which salutes the Air Force Crews who bring home the remains of fallen soldiers.  On this episode of Red Belly Radio, we asked two of our Veteran Air Force Pilots, Vice President Director of Operations, Captain Greg Crum, and Flight Operations Coordinator—Operations Control Center, former Captain Dave “Bubba” Edens, to talk about their own experiences.  Dave describes his own Angel Flights during the Vietnam War and how our Employees today handle the solemn occasion when a fallen Hero returns home.  Dave also talks about the incredible joy of flying to Hanoi to bring home our Prisoners of War.   ... View more

One of the best current online tributes to our Veterans is Radney Foster’s moving YouTube video, “Angel Flight,” which salutes the Air Force Crews who bring home the remains of fallen soldiers. ... View more