Southwest Airlines Fact Sheet
Revised: May 23, 2010
Gary Kelly, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer & President
P.O. Box 36611
2702 Love Field Drive
Dallas, TX 75235
Southwest Airlines was incorporated in Texas and commenced Customer Service on June 18, 1971, with three Boeing 737 aircraft serving three Texas cities - Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Today, Southwest operates 541 Boeing 737 aircraft between 69 cities. Southwest topped the monthly domestic originating passenger rankings for the first time in May 2003. Yearend results for 2009 marked Southwest’s 37th consecutive year of profitability. Southwest became a major airline in 1989 when it exceeded the billion-dollar revenue mark. Southwest is the United States’ most successful low-fare, high frequency, point-to-point carrier. Southwest operates more than 3,300 flights a day coast-to-coast, making it the largest U.S. carrier based on domestic passengers carried as of September 30, 2009.
More than 3,300 flights a day
Nearly 35,000 total Employees throughout the Southwest system.
Common stock is traded under the symbol “LUV” on the NYSE.
- Net income: $99 million
- Net income, excluding special items: $143 million
- Total passengers carried: 86 million
- Total RPMs: 74.5 billion
- Average passenger load factor: 76 percent
- Total operating revenue: $10.4 billion
Southwest flies to 69 cities in 35 states.
Albany
Albuquerque
Amarillo
Austin
Baltimore/Washington
Birmingham
Boise
Boston Logan
Buffalo
Burbank
Chicago (Midway)
Cleveland
Columbus
Corpus Christi
Dallas (Love Field)
Denver
Detroit (Metro)
El Paso
Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood
Ft. Myers/Naples
Harlingen/South Padre Island
Hartford/Springfield
Houston (Hobby)
Indianapolis
Long Island (MacArthur)
Jackson
Jacksonville
Kansas City
Las Vegas
Little Rock
Los Angeles (LAX)
Louisville
Lubbock
Manchester
Midland/Odessa
Milwaukee
Minneapolis/St. Paul
Nashville
New Orleans
New York (LaGuardia)
Norfolk
Oakland
Oklahoma City
Omaha
Ontario
Orange County
Orlando
Panama City Beach
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
Portland
Providence
Raleigh-Durham
Reno
Sacramento
St. Louis
Salt Lake City
San Antonio
San Diego
San Francisco
San Jose
Seattle/Tacoma
Spokane
Tampa
Tucson
Tulsa
Washington, DC (Dulles)
West Palm Beach
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Southwest currently operates 541 Boeing 737 jets (as of March 31, 2010).
- The Company’s fleet has an average age of approximately 10.5 years.
- The average aircraft trip length is 633 miles with an average duration of one hour and 54 minutes.
- Southwest aircraft fly an average of 6.5 flights per day, or almost 12 hours and 15 minutes per day.
- Southwest was the launch customer for the Boeing 737-700 in 1997. Southwest was also a launch customer for the Boeing 737-500 and -300 series aircraft.
- Southwest recently completed updating its original color scheme of gold, red and orange paint with the addition of Canyon Blue. Three Next-Generation Boeing 737 aircraft will continue flying with a commemorative livery of Desert Gold to honor the carrier’s original three cities—Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.
- Performance-enhancing Blended Winglets have been added to our fleet of 737-700s, and all new 737-700 aircraft arrive from Boeing with Blended Winglets installed. Additionally, Southwest began installation of Blended Winglets on some of our 737-300 aircraft in early 2007. Approximately 90 -300 aircraft have been retrofitted with Blended Winglets as of the end of third quarter 2009; an additional 12 -300 aircraft are expected to be retrofitted by mid-2010.
- Southwest tested Wi-Fi on four of our airplanes, and in late 2009, we made the decision to begin installing satellite-delivered broadband from our Wi-Fi provider, Row 44, on the rest of our fleet. We currently estimate that our entire fleet will be Wi-Fi enabled in the first half of 2012.
Southwest Airlines’ Top Ten Airports by Departures: (as of May 23, 2010)
Chicago Midway
Las Vegas
Baltimore/Washington
Phoenix
Houston Hobby
Dallas (Love Field)
Denver
Los Angeles (LAX)
Oakland
Orlando
224
223
181
177
135
131
129
116
114
104
29
19
20
24
17
15
14
11
13
12
51
57
44
44
30
15
42
20
20
33
1985
1982
1993
1982
1971
1971
2006
1982
1989
1996
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Southwest Airlines currently operates six Customer Support and Services centers located in Albuquerque, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio.
Fun Facts:
- Southwest received 90,043 resumes and hired 831 new Employees in 2009.
- In 2009 Southwest served 63.2 million cans of soda, juices, and water; 14.3 million alcoholic beverages; 14 million bags of pretzels; 90 million bags of peanuts; 17.7 million Select-A-Snacks; and 33.5 million other snacks.
- Southwest consumed approximately 1.4 billion gallons of jet fuel in 2009.
- In 2009, Southwest moved 182 million pounds of cargo.
- The shortest daily Southwest flight is between Ft. Myers (RSW) and Orlando (MCO) (133 miles). The longest daily Southwest flight is between Providence (PVD) and Las Vegas (LAS) (2,363 miles).
- Southwest has 1,164 married couples. In other words, 2,328 Southwest Employees have spouses who also work for the Company.
Southwest Airlines Distinctions:
- Southwest’s average passenger airfare is $124.90 one-way, and the average passenger trip length is about 859 miles.
- Southwest Airlines has consistently received the lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded of all Major U.S. carriers that have been reporting statistics to the Department of Transportation (DOT) since September 1987, which is when the DOT began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics and publishing its Air Travel Consumer Report.
- The airline adopted the first profit-sharing plan in the U.S. airline industry in 1973. Through this plan and others, Employees own about 8 percent of the Company stock.
- The airline is about 83 percent* unionized.
(*This percentage represents a total Employee headcount of fulltime and parttime, active and inactive Employees who are unionized.)
- Southwest Airlines is a member of the FORTUNE 500.
- The Ronald McDonald House program, cornerstone of the Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities, is the primary corporate charity of Southwest Airlines. Annually, the Company sponsors the Southwest Airlines LUV Classic golf tournaments whose proceeds benefit various Ronald McDonald Houses and have totaled close to $11 million over the past 24 years.
- In April 2010, Southwest Airlines ranked #4 among airlines and #12 among all industries, on FORTUNE Magazine’s annual list of the World’s Most Admired Companies.
- In March 2010, Southwest Airlines was awarded the Diamond Award, at the Air Cargo World awards ceremony, with the highest overall airline score leading all airlines in the Performance and Value categories.
- In February 2010, Business Week released its 2009 Top 20 Best Companies for Leadership list—Southwest Airlines ranked #2!
- In January 2010, Southwest Airlines was recognized by Vault.com for having one of the Top 10 Internships in America for 2010.
- In December 2009, Southwest Airlines topped the list of the 50 best U.S. places to work by Glassdoor.com.
- In November 2009, Southwest Airlines was named Best Low Cost/No Frills Airline in the OAG Airline Industry Awards. Additionally, Southwest Airlines was named as a finalist for Best Airline based in North America.
- In November 2009, Southwest Airlines was recognized with an InfoWorld 100 Award for its Automated Outbound Messaging (AOM) system.
- In November 2009, Zagat named Southwest Airlines Best Value–Domestic; Best Consumer Ontime Estimates–Domestic; and Best Luggage Policy–Domestic.
- In November, 2009, Southwest Airlines was recognized as Favorite Domestic Airline and ranked #1 in Best Customer Service, Best Airfare Prices, Best On-Time Service, Best Baggage Service, and Best Value Frequent Flier program, among others, in the 2009 Reader’s Choice Awards by Smarter Travel.
- In November 2009, Southwest Airlines was listed as one of the Top 50 Companies Recognized as Leaders in Corporate Social Responsibility by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and Reputation Institute.
- In October 2009, www.nutsaboutsouthwest.com was awarded “Best Blog” for the third year in a row at the PR News Platinum Awards.
- In September 2009, Southwest Airlines ranked #179 out of 500 in Newsweek’s Green Ranking of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the US. Within the category of “Media, Travel & Leisure” Southwest ranked #17 out of 35 and was the highest ranking airline!
- In August 2009, Southwest Airlines was named Best Domestic Airline, Best Domestic Airline Customer Service, and Best Low Cost Carrier by Executive Travel magazine’s 2009 Leading Edge Awards.
- In June 2009, Southwest Airlines was named to MSN Money’s Customer Service Hall of Fame.
- In April 2009, Southwest Airlines received the “American Brand Excellence Award for Travel,” and was recognized as the “2009 Grand Award Winner” in the City Business Journal Network’s Brand Excellence Awards.
- In April 2009, Southwest Airlines was included in BusinessWeek’s ranking of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World.
- In March 2009, Southwest Airlines was ranked #3 on CampusGrotto’s list of Best College Internship Programs.
- In March 2009, Southwest Airlines was Ranked #1 in the category for Airlines in Institutional Investor’s magazine poll of America’s Most Shareholder Friendly Companies.
- In 2009, Southwest Airlines was named the top U.S. airline on the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index.
- Southwest Airlines was recognized as a 2009 Corporation of the Year by MANA, a National Latina Organization.
- Southwest Airlines was named the seventh most admired Company in FORTUNE magazine’s ranking of the 50 Most Admired Companies in the World; the only U.S. airline to make the list and the 13th consecutive year that Southwest has been named to the Most Admired List.
- For the 11th consecutive year, Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards took top honors and was awarded first place in Best Award Redemption category at the 21st Annual Freddie Awards. The Best Award Redemption category was introduced in 1998 and no other frequent flyer program has ever won! In addition Rapid Rewards placed in the top five in five other categories, including: Program of the Year; Best Website for southwest.com; Best Member Communcations; Best Bonus Promotion; and Best Customer Service.
- Southwest Airlines Cargo was recognized for its excellence in air cargo for the sixth straight year, named “Airline of the Year” by the Express Delivery & Logistics Association (XLA). Southwest Airlines has placed on XLA’s Airline of the Year list for nine consecutive years. In addition, Southwest Airlines Cargo won XLA’s award for Excellence in Web Site and Technology.
- In 2009, online bookings reached 81 percent via southwest.com, compared to approximately 78 percent in 2008.
- More than 10 million people subscribe to Southwest’s weekly Click ‘N Save e-mails.
- In the first quarter of 2010, approximately 78 percent of Southwest Customers are checking in online or at a kiosk.
- 66 percent of Fortune 500 Companies are enrolled in SWABIZ.
- Southwest was the first airline to establish a home page on the Internet. Initially, five Employees comprised Southwest’s web site development team, and the site took about nine months to create.
- In March 2010, southwest.com was the 5th largest travel site and largest airline site in terms of unique visitors (source: Comscore MediaMetrix). Nielsen/Netratings also reported that southwest.com was the largest airline site in terms of unique visitors.
- The “Southwest Shortcut” feature on southwest.com is the first online tool that helps Customers find the lowest fare based on availability over an entire month.
- DING!, a downloadable desktop application, available for both PC and MAC users, was introduced in February 2005, to notify Customers of exclusive hot offers. Southwest was the first airline to implement this type of tool.
- In addition to flights, Customers are also able to make car, hotel, cruise, and complete vacation package reservations on southwest.com.