Speeches and Presentations from Southwest Leaders
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Connecting people for the really important events in their lives is what Southwest Airlines is all about, Southwest President Colleen Barrett told a gathering of realtors in Dallas recently.
“At Southwest, we feel we have opened the skies to give travelers the Freedom to Fly,” Barrett told the Dallas Women’s Council of Realtors at a recent luncheon. “We have thousands of letters from Customers saying things like, ‘Before you started service in our city, I could only visit my grandchildren once a year; now I can see them four or five times a year.’ To us, it’s all about relationships. Our Employees don’t feel like they go to a job each day; they are going to a cause. “
But, that calling won’t extend to DFW Airport, Barrett said. Southwest has studied the concept of operating from there, and it just doesn’t fit the carrier’s business plan.
“We had no intention to move there in the 1970s, and we have no intention now,” she said. “It just doesn’t fit our niche, because travelers spend so much time on the runway—sometimes the runway wait is as long as some of our flights! We fly point-to-point, and we want to fill our planes at each point. DFW works only if you have a hub, and serving DFW would probably cost several times our average passenger handling costs.”
Southwest’s operating philosophy is dependent on quick, efficient airports where congestion and air traffic delays are minimal.
“Congestion on the ground (at DFW) is horrible,” she said. “If we have a choice, we prefer closer, smaller airports.”
Southwest Airlines is currently in a political battle to repeal the Wright Amendment, a decades old federal law that restricts operations at Dallas Love Field, Southwest’s home.
The history of the Wright Amendment is full of heated political and legal battles, the climax of which was a compromise that allowed Southwest to continue operating from Love Field while other carriers had already moved their operations to the then-new DFW Airport.
“It’s ironic that the Wright Amendment is attached to the Airline Competition Act, after de-regulation,” Barrett said. “Not that I’m bitter!”
During the luncheon, Barrett also expounded on the culture of Southwest and the many aspects of that culture that keep Southwest Airlines an employer of choice.
“The culture at Southwest Airlines demands no ranking system; it is an egalitarian approach to Customers and Employees,” she said. “We have very few rules, and just a few guidelines. We encourage and empower Employees to follow guidelines, but break them if you feel like you need to break them. I assure New Hires that if they have a ‘situation,’ they won’t be chastised if they lean toward the Customer.”
The “Whatever it Takes” attitude is prevalent at Southwest, Barrett said, resulting in many positive letters from Customers about Employees who go above and beyond to serve the flying public.
“Customers still send commendation letters, even if we didn’t solve a problem, simply for the way the situation was handled,” she said. “Employees have taken children traveling alone or elderly Customers to their homes if a family member wasn’t there to meet their flight,” Barrett said, though she emphasized that the Employees first secure official legal permission to do so.
Finding those special people to work at Southwest is a task the airline doesn’t take lightly. “Southwest is probably more religious than others in hiring the right people,” Barrett said. “We try to hire leaders in every position, and one of the ‘freedoms’ we offer internally is the ‘freedom to be an individual.’ We encourage Employees to let their personalities shine. We turn down people who come to us with great recommendations if something about their attitude or behavior appears to be a problem.”
Employees, Barrett said, are encouraged to treat Customers as their own family members. “We have a young and dedicated workforce who may look at every Customer as potentially ‘my mother’ or ‘my child.’” she said. “With Herb (Kelleher, the airline’s co-founder and executive chairman) as our ultimate teacher and coach, we follow his lead in taking our business seriously, but not ourselves.”
Turning to the unique operating philosophy of Southwest, Barrett explained the benefits of the carrier’s famous open seating policy.
“I understand that open seating may not be the favorite Southwest Airlines feature, but we have Customers who do business with us because of the seating policy,” Barrett said. “Hundreds of Customers have met and fallen in love because of the policy! We have received several wedding invitations from couples who met on our flights. We have also heard from many companies who said they will only open a branch office in a Southwest city. Others have written us and said they will only send their kids to a college in a Southwest city.
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