Speeches and Presentations from Southwest Leaders
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Mike Van de Ven |
Mike Van de Ven recently spoke to airline experts from across the continent. Mike immediately traveled back into his childhood when - to his surprise - an old friend named Carole Rickard Hedden introduced him to the distinguished crowd. To give you a bit of background on Mike’s “blast from the past,” Carole was Mike’s swimming instructor growing up and her dad was his basketball coach. Apparently, Carole’s father taught Mike a lesson that he will never forget:
“I have to share one story with you about Coach Rickard. I was in the 5th or 6th grade and had spent a night at a friend’s house. The focus of the evening was seeing how secure we could attach a police siren and suction cup to things. Doors, floors, cars, everything was in play. The objective was for one of us to attach it to something and see if the other could pull it off with sheer brute force. I came up with the idea to attach it to my bare chest. To make a long story short, I did a pretty good job of attaching it and my buddy had to pull really hard to make it “pop” off. So hard, that it left a red circle about the size of a hub cap across my chest. Overnight that red circle bruised a little and by morning it looked like I had a hickey from King Kong. I didn’t think twice about it as I headed off to Coach Rickard’s basketball practice. As luck would have it, we had to scrimmage the other team at practice and of course... we were ‘skins’. The second I pulled off my shirt, Coach Rickard just looked at me and said, “Van de Ven, I sure would like to meet your girlfriend.”
“So Coach Rickard taught me a couple of things that are useful in navigating through the airline industry. First, you better know more than one stroke if you want to keep your head above water, and second, sometimes a ‘win’ to you looks like a big hickey on your chest to everyone else and you just look stupid.”
Successfully capturing the attention in the room, Mike continued his insightful presentation by reviewing Southwest’s evolution over the last 35 years. Mike hit on every aspect of the Company, from the famous go-go boots to the drastic security changes the industry has adapted to over the last six years. After reviewing Southwest’s past successes, Mike turned his presentation to the future needs of Southwest and the airline industry:
“Southwest currently has several internal efforts focused on improving maintenance efficiencies, improving station staffing and execution, and optimizing aircraft flows from a marketing, maintenance, crew, and usage perspective. We are making investments in our baggage process, distribution technology, and information exchanges across the company. These types of investment aren’t new to Southwest, we make them as part of our efforts to continue to improve our business each year.”
“But, over the long run, our industry needs more than that. For the next several decades, core operating costs are under pressure in almost every category across the industry: hull & liability insurance, airport costs, baggage screening, security, fuel, and operational delays from ATC congestion.”
Mike closed his speech by highlighting the valiant efforts of Southwest Employees:
“And of course, no discussion of Southwest would be complete without talking a minute about our Employees. I enjoy a little Texas Hold ’Em every once in a while. And when I look at the hand that we have a Southwest, it includes our aces... the best Employees in the business. Our President, Colleen Barrett, is always saying that our competition can copy our business plan but they can’t copy our people. I couldn’t agree more.”
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