About the Company
Southwest Airlines Co. is an American airline headquartered in Texas, United States. The company was incorporated in 1967 as Air Southwest Company. In 1971, the company adopted its current name and went public. Its shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol of LUV. LUV shares are a component of the S&P 500 as well as DJIA stock market indices.
It is a pioneer of the large-scale, low-cost model in Airlines. Southwest began operations in and around Texas in 1975 and expanded into adjacent states in 1978. The company acquired TranStar Airlines in 1985. By the 1990s, Southwest Airlines Co. covered California and several key cities in the East, Southeast, as well as the Midwest regions. In 1993, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) coined the term “The Southwest Effect”, which referred to lowering air-fares by increasing passenger traffic. The same year, LUV acquired Morris Air in a stock-swap of about $129 million. Another merger took place in 2011 when the company bought-off AirTran Holdings, Inc. in a $1 billion transaction. LUV had a fleet of more than 700 Boeing 737 aircraft in 2019, which served a customer base of over 130 million passengers. In 2020, it added services to Hawaii, Mexico, Miami, and Cozumel. It also continued to expand within the United States and began flight operations to Palm Springs, California as well as the seasonal destinations in Colorado.
As of 2021, Southwest Airlines Co. is one of the world’s low-cost carriers. It schedules flights to over 100 destinations in 40 state within the US as well as 10 countries. LUV operates crew bases in several US airports, including Atlanta, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Denver, Los Angeles, Orlando, Phoenix, Houston, and Nashville. LUV ranked 141st on the list of Fortune 500 companies. Southwest Airlines Co. ranked 482nd on Forbes’ list of Global 2000 2020 companies. Forbes also included LUV on its lists of Best Employers for Women 2020, Best Employers for Diversity 2020, and World’s Best Employers 2020, among others.;
Organisation | Southwest Airlines Co |
Industry | Airlines |
HeadQuarters | Dallas, TX |