Southwest Airlines Community

One of my favorite times of the year is when our Phoenix Employees trade places with The Phoenix Suns.  This year, we had eight Suns players—Josh Childress, Jared Dudley, Grant Hill, Robin Lopez, Markieff Morris, Ronnie Price, Sebastian Telfair, and Hakim Warrick all show up to welcome Customers and pose for pictures, sign autographs, and they even marshalled in one of our 737's.  Suns alumni Ced Ceballos and Mark West, broadcaster Tom Leander, The Gorilla, Suns Dancers, and the APS Solar Squad were also on hand to usher in Passengers and give away Suns memorabilia.  The players also had the opportunity to make gate announcements and take boarding passes as PHX Customers boarded our red bellies.  Suns player Sebastian Telfair’s wife called while he was making boarding announcements and he said, “Honey, I’ve got to call you back. I just found my second calling in life.” PHX Station Manager Mike Miller and several PHX Employees helped celebrate this partnership as the Official Airline of The Phoenix Suns. We couldn’t have made this happen without them--so here's a big thanks to our Phoenix Station! ... View more

As with all relationships, sometimes things have to come to an end.  Times change, partnerships evolve, and many times we have to make a decision that is best for our business. That said, the NBA and Southwest Airlines were unable to come to a mutually beneficial agreement to extend our partnership.  It was a very difficult decision for both the NBA and Southwest as we felt that our eight-year relationship had a very positive impact on both of our businesses.  With our tough financial climate and limited resources, we had to make the tough decision to say goodbye to one of our dear friends and partners, and both sides agree—we’ll miss each other! With this decision, we have to repaint Slam Dunk One.  It will soon be getting a new paint job, and though we’ll miss seeing Slam Dunk One flying around the system, we will still have a local presence with the Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, and Boston Celtics. Southwest Employees and Customers will still enjoy the fun, local events we have had over the years with these teams. Rest assured your National Strategic Partnerships Team is busy working on some new and exciting partners that we’ll be sharing with you soon.  We promise to continue to keep the Southwest brand connected to the national brands that we all love so much.  ... View more

Happy NBA All-Star 2010 Weekend!!!  We couldn’t be more excited that our good friends at the NBA picked our hometown to host their premier event! We kicked off the weekend yesterday with our President Emeritus, Colleen Barrett, and NBA Legend, Spud Webb.  Together, they checked Customers in for flights at Dallas' Love Field Airport in the snowy weather, and the surprised one of our deserving Rapid Reward Members with tickets to All-Star Saturday Night and to the All-Star game on Sunday.  We handed out basketball-shaped cookies, and Spud Webb handed out autographed basketballs and pictures.  Check out the video. As the Official Airline of the NBA, we thought we should really have some fun with our Customers and Employees. We held several different contests and sweepstakes on southwest.com, rewarded Rapid Reward Members and SWA Biz Customers, and can’t wait for All-Star Saturday Night and for the All-Star game Sunday.  Some very lucky fans in a very lucky section will be surprised Saturday Night, and 4500 lucky fans at Cowboys Stadium will receive a token of our love. We’re also trying some fun new things with our great partner. If you go to the schedule page on www.nba.com you’ll see our Southwest Airlines travel button.  In one easy step you can follow your favorite NBA team on the road.  Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll be following your team on the road on Slam Dunk One!  In 2005, to commemorate our relationship with the NBA, Southwest painted one of our Boeing 737’s in an NBA theme.  If you’re in Dallas this weekend, you’ll see Slam Dunk One flying in and out of Love field.  (Photo is from our Flickr group and was taken by "SWA Blog Boy.") Hope you have a great weekend! Welcome to Dallas NBA fans!  We’re glad you’re here.   ... View more

I'm that girl you see on your way to work rocking out in my car.  It's seriously the best way to make it through traffic.   So to me, what better way to celebrate our growth in Austin than to rock out with our Customers on the streets of Austin?  We are in serious celebration mode because Southwest introduced our 19th nonstop destination from Austin Bergstrom on May 10, bringing our service to 51 daily nonstop flights. So, through May 19, our marketing folks will be creating “sweet harmony” throughout the Austin Community with a portable recording studio. If you us see hanging around Austin, just step into our glass truck and record a track. Once your performance is complete, you can log onto http://southwest.com/austinrocks  to download your butt kickin’ tune for free or e-mail your heart stopping performance to a friend. If acting like an air guitar king or queen isn’t your thing, then maybe free stuff will be! When the truck isn’t rocking, our peeps will be buying free stuff for our Austin Customers at all of the “hot spots” throughout the city. Not to mention we are giving away 51 free roundtrip airline tickets to anywhere Southwest flies! When it comes to rockin’ Austin, we aren’t missing a beat For updates on where we'll be in Austin, be sure to follow us on Twitter!  ... View more