Luv and War at 30,000 Feet: Texas Monthly March 2012: Success, however, has come at a price. Southwest made a series of daring decisions in the past decade—in stark opposition to what its competitors were doing—that allowed the company to ride out the storm, but as a result, the airline is no longer the scrappy short-hop carrier that flew only into quirky airports like Love and Hobby, gave out flimsy pieces of plastic as boarding passes, and often charged half what other airlines did. And though it remains one of Texas’s most iconic companies, customers who are old enough to remember know that Southwest is very far from the days when attractive women wearing orange hot pants and white go-go boots served Bloody Marys on the 8 a.m. “Love Bird” from Dallas to Houston.
Yet in an era when the airline industry is barely more popular than Congress, and many passengers consider flying a form of slow torture, with its endless lines, delays, fees, and security hassles, the airline has managed to chart a new course that has left its competitors idling on the runway. The question is, How did Southwest do it?