Southwest Airlines

What is Southwest Airlines!?


Southwest Airlines Co. is a major United States airline headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and is the world’s largest low-cost carrier.

The airline was established in 1967 by Herb Kelleher as Air Southwest Co. and adopted its current name, Southwest Airlines Co., in 1971, when it began operating as an intrastate airline wholly within the state of Texas, first flying between Dallas and San Antonio. The airline has more than 58,000 employees as of September 2018 and operates more than 4,000 departures a day during peak travel season.

As of January 2019, Southwest carries the most domestic passengers of any United States airline. The airline has scheduled services to 99 destinations in the United States and ten additional countries. Service to four destinations in Hawaii was coming in 2018, now 2019, subject to FAA approval, with routes to be decided on and announced in the near future.

Headquarters
The Southwest Airlines headquarters is located on the grounds of Dallas Love Field in the Love Field neighborhood of Dallas, Texas.

On September 17, 2012, Southwest broke ground on a new Training and Operational Support (TOPS) building.[40] The TOPS Building is across the street from its current headquarters building. The property includes a two-story, 100,000 square foot Network Operations Control (NOC) building that can withstand an EF3 tornado. It also includes a four-story, 392,000 square foot office and training facility with two levels devoted to each function. The new facilities house 24-hour coordination and maintenance operations, customer support and services, and training. The project was completed in late 2013, with occupancy beginning in 2014.

On June 2, 2016, Southwest broke ground on its new office and training facility known as Wings. The newest addition to the corporate campus is composed of a 420,000 square foot six story office building, and 380,000 square foot adjoining structure called the LEAD (Leadership Education and Aircrew Development) Center which serves as the new pilot training facility. The LEAD Center has capacity to house and support 18 flight simulators. It is designed to be expanded to accommodate up to 26 simulator bays. The building opened on April 3, 2018

Southwest changing to Airbus
In October 2020, Southwest announced that it was considering the Airbus A220 as an alternative to the MAX 7 to replace its 737-700s, with deliveries from 2025. However, in March 2021 Southwest announced an order for 100 MAX 7 jets with deliveries from 2022 and said that negotiations with Airbus were never initiated

Fleet
Southwest Airlines has only operated Boeing 737 jetliner models, except for a period from 1979 to 1987 when it leased and operated several Boeing 727-200s from Braniff International Airways. Southwest is the largest operator of the Boeing 737 worldwide, with over 740 in service, each averaging six flights per day. After completing the purchase of AirTran Airways, Southwest Airlines acquired AirTran's existing fleet of Boeing 717 aircraft. However, Southwest elected not to aquire them to its fleet and currently donated them to Delta Air Lines.

Former Fleet
planes that once were operated by southwest airlines