Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines is a major American low-cost carrier headquartered at Dallas Love Field in Dallas, Texas. It is a major airline in the United States, headquartered in the Love Field neighborhood of Dallas. With its all-Boeing 737 fleet, Southwest serves over 100 destinations in 42 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and ten other countries and territories near the southern United States in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea regions. Born from a concept sketched out between a Texas businessman and his attorney, the airline grew from a three-city intrastate service into one of the largest carriers in North America, and it remains one of the most recognizable corporate institutions in Dallas. From 1973 to 2019, Southwest posted 47 consecutive years of profitability — a remarkable streak in an often unpredictable and fiercely competitive industry.

Founding and Early History

On March 15, 1967, Herb Kelleher, who had celebrated his 36th birthday just three days earlier, walked into a courtroom in San Antonio and filed the incorporation papers for Air Southwest Co. The company had no employees, no revenues, and no planes — it was, in essence, a paper airline, an idea. Instead of flying to small towns, co-founder Rollin King suggested serving the three largest cities in Texas — Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas — by offering low fares, convenient schedules, and a "no-frills" approach that was completely contrary to the standards of established airlines.

By flying only within the state of Texas, Southwest would be exempt from regulation by the federal Civil Aeronautics Board, allowing it to undercut the prices of competitors. In November 1967, Kelleher filed an application with the Texas Aeronautics Commission to serve Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. The application was a state, not a federal, matter because Southwest did not propose flying out of state. On February 20, 1968, the Texas Aeronautics Commission voted unanimously to grant Air Southwest a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity.

The legal path to the sky was far from smooth. Three other airlines — Braniff, Trans-Texas, and Continental — sued to prevent the company from starting up. Kelleher, an attorney whose stake in the company was a mere $20,000, took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Air Southwest in December 1970. The challenge cost Southwest $530,000 to defend, leaving the company short of money. The new management changed the name of the airline to Southwest Airlines, moved its headquarters to Dallas, and raised $1.25 million to replenish cash reserves depleted by Southwest's legal battles.

On June 18, 1971, Southwest Airlines launched its first flights, connecting Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio in what became known as the "Texas Triangle." With President Lamar Muse at the helm, the airline offered daily round-trip flights between Dallas and San Antonio and 12 daily round-trips between Dallas and Houston. A one-way ticket cost $20.00. Foregoing traditional frills, flight attendants wore go-go boots and hot pants and served "love potions" and "bites" — drinks and peanuts — to primarily business commuters. Having already posted a net loss of $1.6 million by 1972, the company was forced to sell one of its planes to Frontier Airlines to have liquidity for payroll and other expenses. The airline turned a corner by year's end 1973, when Southwest racked up its first profitable year, carrying half a million passengers.

Growth and Expansion

Company expansion began in 1976, when the airline commenced service to the Rio Grande Valley. By year's end, it had acquired a fifth plane, carried its five-millionth passenger, and its stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange as "LUV." The stock exchange symbol LUV was chosen to represent the airline's home at Dallas Love Field as well as the theme of their employee and customer relationships.

In 1978, Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act, legally freeing Southwest to greatly expand its operations. In 1975, Southwest began flying to other cities in Texas, and in 1979, after passage of the Airline Deregulation Act, it began flying to adjacent states. It started service to the East and the Southeast in the 1990s, and Denver in 2006, which is now its most popular destination.

A core component of Southwest's business model from its earliest days has been the exclusive use of a single aircraft type. The airline has predominantly operated a single aircraft type: the Boeing 737. Though it briefly flew a small fleet of six Boeing 727-200s in the 1970s and 1980s, the 737 has been its backbone. Southwest concentrates primarily on point-to-point rather than hub-and-spoke service in markets with frequent, conveniently-timed flights and low fares. This approach kept turnaround times short and operating costs low — a competitive advantage that other carriers attempted to replicate for decades.

Colleen Barrett became the first and only female president of an airline when she ascended to the role in 2001. Beginning as Herb Kelleher's legal secretary, she is considered the mother of Southwest and still serves as President Emerita. In 2010, Southwest completed its acquisition of AirTran Airways, further expanding its domestic reach. After the merger of Orlando-based AirTran Airways in late 2014 under the Southwest Airlines brand, the company's operating income almost doubled, from 2.2 billion U.S. dollars to 4.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2015.

Southwest and Dallas Love Field: The Wright Amendment

No chapter of Southwest's Dallas story is more contested than its decades-long relationship with Dallas Love Field and the legal framework that governed it — the Wright Amendment. The founding of Southwest Airlines in 1971 continued to breathe life into Love Field as the fledgling airline refused to move its operations to DFW Airport. When DFW Airport opened in 1974, every airline except Southwest moved to the new airport, drastically reducing commercial flights at Love Field.

The Wright Amendment of 1979 was a United States federal law that governed traffic at Dallas Love Field, an airport in Dallas, Texas, to protect Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport from competition. The amendment — enacted in reaction to the refusal of Southwest Airlines to vacate Love Field and move to DFW — prohibited carriers from operating full-size airliners between Love Field and destinations beyond Texas and its four neighboring states.

Passenger service operated onboard larger mainline jet aircraft could be provided only to airports in Texas and its four neighboring U.S. states: Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, which severely limited growth out of the airport. In addition, airlines could not sell connections out of Dallas with a stop in one of the neighboring states. So, for example, Southwest could not sell a flight from Dallas to Oklahoma City to Chicago.

Despite those constraints, Southwest persisted and ultimately thrived. Southwest worked around the law and continued to build mini hubs with its usual point-to-point destination route system, becoming hugely successful and profitable. The airline flourished, regardless of the Wright Amendment.

The law was partially repealed in 2006 and then fully repealed in 2014. As part of the 2006 five-party agreement that led to phasing out Wright Amendment restrictions by 2014, the number of gates at Love Field was legally reduced from 32 to 20, leaving Southwest controlling 18 of the 20 gates. Southwest Airlines confirmed its intent to eventually begin service at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, citing gate limitations and regulatory barriers at its Dallas Love Field hub, which prevent international expansion and route diversification.

Dallas Headquarters and Corporate Campus

The corporate headquarters of Southwest Airlines is located at 2702 Love Field Drive in Dallas, Texas. This facility functions as the main office for the airline, housing its executive leadership and the central administrative departments that oversee the company's vast operational network. Southwest Airlines' main corporate headquarters building on the company's campus near Dallas Love Field is named after co-founder and former Chief Executive Herb Kelleher.

The campus has expanded significantly in recent decades. In 2018, Southwest finished a $250 million, 414,000-square-foot facility called the "Wings" building that houses 2,200 employees and includes flight operations, training, regulatory, compliance, technology, and other offices. The training portion of the structure was constructed out of a special hardened building that can withstand 210-mile-per-hour winds, as it must remain operational every day of the year in all weather conditions. Alongside the office building sits the Leadership Education and Aircrew Development (LEAD) Center. The LEAD Center serves as the airline's pilot training facility and has the capacity to house and support 18 flight simulators. It is designed to be expanded to accommodate up to 26 simulator bays.

The airline has a dedicated culture and archive center located on campus that includes an exact replica of Kelleher's office, as well as a speaker that lets visitors listen to three different versions of Kelleher's laugh. The treasure trove of memorabilia includes displays featuring original flight attendants on the ramp in the 1970s hot pants uniforms, former CEO Lamar Muse's newspaper ad during the 1973 "$13 fare war," and various bumper stickers and buttons.

Employee training is closely tied to the Dallas campus. When airport agents begin their careers with Southwest, they come to the airline's Dallas headquarters for a training course. All Southwest's new employees go through an orientation session in Dallas called "FLY," which stands for "Freedom, LUV, and You." Employees at the Dallas campus staff the NOC, or network operations control center, which functions as the central nervous system for the entire airline, where flights are dispatched and tracked, weather systems are monitored, and technical malfunctions are addressed.

Southwest Airlines in Dallas Today

Southwest is the fourth-largest airline in North America when measured by passengers carried, as of 2024. It is a major U.S. low-cost carrier headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and serves more than 120 destinations across the U.S., Mexico, and Central America. Southwest Airlines' annual employee count was 72,790 in 2026.

Continued impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, winter storms in late 2022, and pilot and staff shortages led to travel disruptions and impacted Southwest's profitability. In 2024, the airline recorded a net income of 465 million U.S. dollars.

In recent years, the airline has made several operational changes of significance to Dallas travelers. For decades Southwest Airlines' open seating model set it apart from other airlines; that changed when the Dallas-based airline moved to assigned seating for passengers. May 28 became the date Southwest Airlines started to charge for checked baggage, representing a significant change for the Dallas-based carrier. For decades, much of the airline's identity was built around the concept of two bags flying free.

Looking ahead, Southwest has signaled a desire to expand its Dallas footprint beyond Love Field. Southwest plans to secure 5–10 gates at DFW to fulfill a "certain mission," likely supporting international flights, though a specific timeline for this move remains several years away. The 2006 Five-Party Agreement, signed by the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth, DFW Airport, Southwest, and American Airlines, capped Love Field at 20 gates and formally designated DFW as the region's primary airport for international service. Whether that agreement will ultimately be renegotiated remains one of the defining open questions for Dallas aviation policy.

Southwest Airlines remains one of the most consequential corporations in Dallas, shaping the city's economy, its airport infrastructure, and its identity as a hub of American commerce. From a two-page concept scrawled on a cocktail napkin to a carrier with tens of thousands of employees spread across a sprawling campus at Love Field, the airline's story is inseparable from the story of modern Dallas.