Originally Posted by ChickenFlight

Ironic that you bring up shareholders as the end-all, be-all motivation for corporations. As the financial sector collapses, many are quick to blame governments, homeowners, ceos and the lot for the collapse but much of the blame goes to those shareholders and their own irresponsibility. Shareholders pushed companies to take great risk hoping for great returns and the Bear-Stearns of the world obliged and the risk didn't pay off. Now we all get to pay that off. To draw a paralell to the industry look at UAUA stock a couple of weeks ago. It became painfully obvious that the bulk of UALs investors are short-term day-trader types that are only in it for the quick buck and will sell IMMEDIATLY the second any bad news is reported. SCARY.

To attract responsible investors (the ones you want), you need a better business model that represents long-term steady growth. The ONLY airline to achieve this growth is Southwest. Yes you can point to smaller airports, cherry-picking profitable routes, clever marketing and sassy flight attendants but the real reason Southwest has been so successful is Herb's greatest single statement (loosely quoted):

"There are three groups of people a business needs to take care of: First, the Employees, if you take care of them, they will take care of your Customers. If the employees and customers are taken care of, the Investors will inhearently be taken care of."

Herb put employees first and it worked. Other CEOs should pick up Nuts, Hard Landings and The Southwest Way if they want to learn how to run an airline.