Southwest started as a fight, not a fairy tale

Southwest started as a fight, not a fairy tale

Southwest Airlines did not begin with a grand strategy. It began with a cocktail napkin sketch and a legal fight. Rollin King and Herb Kelleher incorporated the airline in 1967, then spent the next four years in Texas courts as Braniff, Continental, and Trans-Texas Airways tried to stop it from flying at all. The courts found those challenges amounted to harassment.

On June 18, 1971, at 7 a.m., that first flight went from Dallas Love Field to Houston and San Antonio with a one-way fare of $20, flight attendants in go-go boots, and $1 cocktails. The airline lost money in year one, turned its first profit in 1973, and never stopped.

What made it work was systems design: Texas-only flying to sidestep Civil Aeronautics Board regulation, a single Boeing 737 type, point-to-point routing, and 15-minute gate turnarounds instead of 45 minutes at legacy carriers. After the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 opened domestic aviation, Southwest expanded beyond Texas, fares dropped, traffic surged, and the “Southwest Effect” was born.

Gobble's Take: The airline that helped make flying feel ordinary was built by making every part of the machine less fussy than the industry thought possible. Source: Perplexity Search

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