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Flashback Fridays: Southwest at the Smithsonian

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Employee
Employee

After being kicked out of the big reservations systems in 1994, Southwest Airlines became the first major airline to offer ticketless travel, about the only way Customers travel today.  Both Morris and ValuJet had implemented similar systems, but it was a huge accomplishment for Southwest to be the first major airline to offer ticketless travel from coast to coast.  On top of this, the feat was accomplished by a Team of only 40 People over the course of four months!

Southwest's hard work was recognized by the Smithsonian at the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards on June 4, 1996.

Director Revenue Accounting Carol Dooley and Ticketing Services Manager Jan Cole The Computerworld Smithsonian Awards were created to honor corporations, organizations, and individuals creating positive changes in society through technology.  Our ticketless system did just that by offering electronic record keeping of a Customer’s reservation, eliminating the need to keep up with any paper documents for travel.  After only six weeks, more than one million Customers had taken advantage to the system! Finance Controller Bill Lyons

Finalists for the award were honored at a ceremony in Washington at the Smithsonian.

Southwest was recognized for our achievements in making travel more convenient and affordable for Customers and for simplifying the process for Employees to assist them.  The new ticketless system allowed for Customer Service Agents to search records with just the first few letters of a last name, which helped speed up the check in and baggage process with error rates less than one percent.