Southwest Airlines Co. It is headquartered in Love Field, Dallas , in the DallasβFort Worth metroplex , and has scheduled service to destinations in the United States and ten other countries. Southwest currently serves airports in 42 states and multiple Central American destinations.
Southwest's business model is distinct from that of other US airlines. It uses a rolling hub and point-to-point network and allows free checked baggage. Its fleet exclusively consists of Boeing jets. The airline has nearly 66, employees and operates about 4, daily departures during peak travel season. Three other airlines Braniff, Trans-Texas Airways , and Continental Airlines took legal action to try to prevent the company from its planned strategy of undercutting their prices by flying only within Texas and thus being exempt from regulation by the federal Civil Aeronautics Board.
The lawsuits were resolved in , and in the airline changed its name to Southwest Airlines and began operating regularly scheduled flights between the Texas Triangle cities of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. In , Southwest began flying to other cities in Texas, and in , after passage of the Airline Deregulation Act , it began flying to adjacent states. It started service to the East and the Southeast in the s, [ 12 ] and Denver in , [ 13 ] which is now its most popular destination. Southwest Airlines was profitable for 47 consecutive fiscal years, from through In May , Southwest fares started showing on Google for the first time after long being excluded from the search engine's search results.
Kelly would retire in rather than seeking reelection as executive chairman , and that several members of the corporate board would be replaced. In September , Southwest Airlines announced its first airline partnership with Icelandair. As of January [update] , the Southwest Airlines fleet consists of aircraft, making it the fourth-largest commercial airline fleet in the world.
All of the aircraft Southwest Airlines operates are from the Boeing family of narrow-body airliners. Since its inception, Southwest Airlines has almost exclusively operated Boeing aircraft except for a brief period when it operated a handful of leased Boeing aircraft. Southwest is the world's largest operator of the Boeing , and was the launch customer of the , , and Using a single basic aircraft type allows Southwest pilots and flight attendants to crew any aircraft in the fleet without restrictions.
