That explains a lot. Some of those conversations didn't really make sense until just now.

 

I'm really liking this idea that airline ceo's communicate on midget porn sites

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

 

Thats awesome 😂😂😂

 

Is that the pilots porn website? I am sure they look down upon us as lesser people

 

Alaska's new California subscription ticketing doesn't seem like the type of program an airline starts five months before a merger. Or, maybe it's pressure to get Southwest to pull the trigger?

 

Horizon/Skywest is probably going to be doing the brunt of it anyway.

 

I hope it’s to pull the trigger I just saw article with Bob Jordan talking about a new product, having to deal with the 737 production ending and possibly another merger in his time so how soon is that merger is the question

 

Do share. Subscription reqd to read?

 

Gary Kelly wants to get out of the way for new Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan

‘Retired’ CEO Gary Kelly talks about his new role as the Dallas-based airline’s executive chairman and how he’s looking to co-founder Herb Kelleher and longtime leader Colleen Barrett as role models.

A relaxed and casual Gary Kelly, the new executive chairman of Southwest Airlines, discusses his new role with The Dallas Morning News.(Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer)CEO Gary Kelly has moved out of the cockpit and the pilot’s seat after 18 years as chief executive of Southwest Airlines and has taken a window seat in the main cabin, one with a nice view of where the plane is going.

Kelly, 66, officially turned the chief executive job over to longtime confidant Bob Jordan on Feb. 1. Kelly’s new role is executive chairman of Southwest’s board of directors, where he’ll get to watch the Dallas-based airline’s progress with a 35,000-foot view, instead of worrying about the minute-to-minute turbulence.



He’s got fewer responsibilities, fewer meetings to attend and fewer emails needing responses, Kelly said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News.

But he isn’t thinking about white sand beaches in Mexico yet or how he’s going to use his extra time after dealing with crisis after crisis during two years of leading an airline through the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the industry’s low points.

Airlines

Southwest Airlines’ Robert Jordan looks ahead to first days as CEO, as formidable challenges await

In February, Robert Jordan, 60, will take the lead at Southwest Airlines as CEO, the company Herb Kelleher helped found and build into a commercial aviation juggernaut. Jordan, who joined Southwest as a computer program in 1986, faces a much different set of challenges than Kelleher ever did in the era of the inter-Texas airline, free bottles of alcohol and flight attendants in go-go boots.“I don’t want to go stale,” Kelly said. “I definitely want to keep up with what’s going on, and you never know when the company is going to need me to get involved.”

Kelly has already been busy. Southwest embarked on a seven-month transition after announcing Kelly’s successor in June, and he steadily handed over day-to-day operating responsibilities to Jordan and Mike Van de Ven, who was promoted from chief operating officer to president. That officially came to an end at the beginning of this month, when Kelly “retired” as CEO and Jordan moved into his old office.

Kelly’s new place is 60 yards down the hall in an office that was formerly a file room.

“I think it’s very important that people know that Bob is the leader and there’s no confusion there,” Kelly said. “I’ll be much more behind the scenes.”

Meanwhile, Kelly has taken a larger role in lobbying in Washington, D.C., on issues such as the bungled expansion of the 5G spectrum and incentives for the production of sustainable aviation fuel, which the airline desperately needs to spur production and hit self-imposed carbon goals during the next one to three decades.



He’s also accepted an invitation from U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to work on a supply chain task force to help identify issues stifling the economy as it tries to unravel some of the logjams to emerging from the pandemic.

“It’s not my desire to get on more corporate boards or anything like that,” Kelly said.

After decades of tumultuous change in the airline industry and despite a global pandemic that upended air travel, air carriers are undergoing an era of unusually stable and orderly transition.

Kelly’s transition came after years of succession planning. In December, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, 60, said he would retire to make way for company president Robert Isom. In 2019, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz announced his retirement and appointed Scott Kirby as his successor.

The planned retirements, as opposed to the previous era of forced resignations amid bankruptcies and mergers, are giving departing CEOs such as Kelly a chance to ease out of the role and into a position such as executive chairman, where they can provide oversight and advice to a successor that they picked themselves.

Kelly’s transition to executive chairman will mirror many of the circumstances he was looking at himself when he took over as CEO in 2004. At that point, legendary Southwest Airlines co-founder Herb Kelleher was sitting as executive chairman after his own retirement as CEO in 2001. Jim Parker, Kelleher’s successor, retired somewhat unexpectedly after only three years in the job.

Kelly said Kelleher was a model for what he hopes to do as executive chairman.

“Herb was so high-profile — he gave lots of speeches, and lots of media attention — and he turned that off cold turkey when he stepped down as CEO in 2001,” Kelly said. “And that’s the only fair way to do it. Bob has the assignment now.”

Kelleher stuck around as executive chairman until 2008 before Kelly assumed both the chairman and CEO titles.
Left to right: Southwest Airlines executives Gary Kelly, CEO, Colleen Barrett, president, and Herb Kelleher, chairman, posed in the lobby of the company's headquarters in Dallas in 2008.(DAVID WOO)“The main thing I marveled at with Herb is that here’s somebody who has a real capacity for work and a real love for this airline and all the people,” Kelly said. “And he put his own personal desires aside, to do everything he could to make me successful.”

Kelly had another longtime presence in the executive suites when he moved in as CEO. Colleen Barrett, a strong voice at Southwest Airlines during Kelleher’s tenure, was elevated to president of the company in 2001 and remained in that job for four years after Kelly took over. Barrett, who also retired in 2008, was long known as Southwest Airlines’ voice for customers, keeping an eye on the passengers’ perspective while the carrier tried to keep costs and fares low.

“Colleen did not want us to be cheap,” Kelly said. “And so as we were thinking about changes, we were trying to enhance Southwest Airlines customer experience and brand and not become the Ryanair of the U.S., which there are several that have taken that course.”

Tom Nealon, who retired as Southwest’s president last year, is also active as an adviser, Kelly said.

When Kelly was tapped for the CEO job in 2004, the company had just over 33,000 employees. It nearly doubled in size during the next 18 years to 62,000 workers, even though it shrank by 8,000 employees during the pandemic.

In those early days, Kelly said the company was still a “high-frequency, point-to-point, low-fare airline.”

“And we weren’t prepared to continue to grow beyond that narrow segment,” Kelly said.

But during Kelly’s tenure, the company did grow, expanding out across the United States into places such as New York City and eventually internationally into Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean.

There is still room to grow, but the company has added 20 new destinations since the beginning of 2020 and is stretched thin in many markets.

Those decisions will be left up to Jordan, who will get to make the fundamental choices about how to rebuild Southwest’s network in the United States and approach markets such as Canada, where it still can’t fly because of technological challenges.

Jordan himself is 60 and has spent 34 years with the airline. Jordan has already laid out his first priorities as CEO, including improving on-time performance, beefing up technology to compete against competitors and figuring out a way to connect with passengers again through the challenges of the pandemic.

Then there are longer-term questions that Kelly thinks could face Jordan or his eventual successor, such as whether Southwest will look to a different aircraft as the Boeing 737, its only airplane type, reaches the likely end of its production life. Or will Southwest have to consider another merger following the recently announced tie-up of Spirit and Frontier? It’s been nearly a decade since the industry went through a major merger wave, and Jordan oversaw one such acquisition in 2011 when Southwest bought AirTran.

“Are we going to radically change our onboard service or the onboard experience?” Kelly said. “That would be a really big decision, so whether Bob tackles those in the next five to 10 years, whether that’s somebody else beyond that time period is a question.”

Kelly plans to stay executive chairman until at least 2026, but beyond that, he isn’t sure when he will leave or how long he wants to stay. Kelleher held the executive chairman job for seven years. But Kelly says “I’m still very young” and points to leaders such as Warren Buffet, who at 91 is still chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

“I wouldn’t put an endpoint on it, but as long as I can be effective, I’d like to stay,” Kelly said. “Why put an end date on it?

“And just being selfish about it, when I look at the kind of things that I could do over the next five, 10 or 15 years, I’d rather be a part of Southwest as opposed to going off and doing other things.”

Airlines

Southwest Airlines bringing back alcohol sales; flight attendants call it ‘unsafe and irresponsible’

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines will bring back onboard alcohol sales to most flights and bring back an expanded beverage offering starting Feb. 16, the carrier announced Thursday. After slimming to just water service when the pandemic began, Southwest Airlines will start serving beverages such as orange juice, tonic water, hot tea and cocoa later this month along with the sale of beer, wine and liquor on flights of more than 176 miles.

 

Interesting that Gary mentioned Tom Nealon is still active as an advisor...me thinks Bob Jordan will be a transition CEO and Tom will return once the dust has settled from whatever merger Bob is here to navigate us through.