RIP, Herb Kelleher...

May he RIP...

Ironically enough, I flew on N711HK from ATL-LAS last year. As my inner Avgeek showed, I thought it was cool to fly on one of the last flying LUV jets that is still painted in the original scheme.

Blue skies and tailwinds!

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Another AVDORK comment.......I didn't realize until now that SWA doesn't seem to really have a common last 2 letters in their N/registration numbers across the fleet. Most of the majors/legacies you can see a little bit of their merger heritage by off N-numbers (example would be DAL MD/717 with NXXXAT numbers)
 
Fascinating man and leadership style. We studied Southwest numerous times in college, I attended Davenport University which was primarily a business school at that time. I did a project on him and Southwest if I recall right. I remember most how they said he lead by example and that no one was above any job there, if thats what it took to get the job done, with stories of him helping baggage handlers load planes and such when he was visiting and they were behind. I lead a small company now and try to incorporate that same type of mindset as I found it so admirable.... RIP Herb
 
Anymouse said:
My neighbor retired from Southwest a couple years ago. He has a couple of interesting stories about him. Apparently he took the effort to meet everyone of his employees and quite often knew them by name.
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I know he did. I had a friend that worked at their main office in Dallas. I was invited to the company happy hour a couple of times and met him every time I was there. He even remembered my wife’s name after only meeting me once and I didn’t even work there... he was a very impressive individual.
 
I met him once at a conference where he was the guest speaker. He had a very interesting way of running a business.

He told us a lot of companies say the customer comes first. He said his motto was, "F@!# the customer." He said "God help the customer that figures out how to get to me to complain." His theory was he cared about his employees and they would take care of his customers. Taking care of the customers wasn't his job. It worked!
 
One of my heroes. I went to the celebration of Southwest's 500th 737 delivery, and Herb was serving the beer... lots of beer.

Good guy, respected his people, they returned it in spades. A big loss.
 
Herb sent me birthday cards for years before he retired. Well, someone at Southwest did, but his name was signed.

It was just a part of the fun experienced by being a SWA customer.

RIP Herb.
 
Sounds like the flying world has lost a very nice man, my he RIP, it struck me as funny: Huckster79 said: he said, that no one there was above any job there.
Then Lowflynjack states: Taking care of customers wasn't his job. Just me and my observations
 
When I was in college, he gave a talk to some MBA students, and I think I was the only one in attendance there as an interested pilot rather an interested future MBA. :)

Herb was drinking scotch (maybe bourbon?) during the talk. It was pretty awesome, and I had a chance to shake his hand afterwards. My SWA buddies tell me that SWA has unfortunately become a lot more legacy-like after Herb's tenure, but it's pretty undeniable what he brought to the industry.
 
35 AoA said:
Another AVDORK comment.......I didn't realize until now that SWA doesn't seem to really have a common last 2 letters in their N/registration numbers across the fleet. Most of the majors/legacies you can see a little bit of their merger heritage by off N-numbers (example would be DAL MD/717 with NXXXAT numbers)
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A bunch of their jets are registered with WN n#s, but they do have a lot of random ones as well.
 
35 AoA said:
Another AVDORK comment.......I didn't realize until now that SWA doesn't seem to really have a common last 2 letters in their N/registration numbers across the fleet. Most of the majors/legacies you can see a little bit of their merger heritage by off N-numbers (example would be DAL MD/717 with NXXXAT numbers)
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Fearless Tower said:
A bunch of their jets are registered with WN n#s, but they do have a lot of random ones as well.
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The majority of the -700’s are WN registered and nearly all of their late -300’s and -500’s were SW registered. Since they began adding -800’s to their fleet that has gone by the wayside, as those just have randomized N-numbers.
 
I imagine that he and Bill Britt are arguing over a beer, right now.
 
kayoh190 said:
Herb was drinking scotch (maybe bourbon?) during the talk.
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Wild Turkey.

He was known as a chain smoker, too.

But yeah, great guy and a real character. Hard drivin' Texan (though he wasn't born there). There are a lot of good Herb stories...
 
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