Original Disruptor Southwest Airlines Survives on Ruthless Business Savvy
Photo Credit: Former Southwest CEO Herb Kelleher hams it up on a jet. Free Enterprise
Skift Take
Southwest has survived by being different. That gets harder, but the lessons of its past success may help define its legacy. The Texas-based airline is one of the subjects in Skift’s recent sixth anniversary book, For the Long Haul, Lessons on Business Longevity, whose chapters we are excerpting for you here.
Southwest Airlines began operations humbly in 1971, with four planes serving three cities in Texas. Since then, it’s grown to be one of the biggest airlines in the United States. It’s now also the most consistently profitable — unlike nearly every other major carrier, Southwest has never entered bankruptcy, or even come close. And it has accomplished all that while remaining relatively well-liked by its employees and customers.
There’s the official Southwest tale of how that happened. The airline likes to say it kept things simple and focused on its customers and their experiences more than flashy offers and deceptively low ticket prices. And it always likes to say it puts its people before profit.
The airline also garnered plenty of goodwill over the years thanks to its former CEO, the tell-it-like-it-is, whiskey-swilling, Marlboro-smoking, all-around good guy Herb Kelleher. What he contributed is something most big corporations could only dream of cultivating.
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