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Southwest Airlines' wall hangings give insight into Hawaiian ambitions
Lewis Lazare 3 hours ago

Never let it be said Southwest Airlines has no strategic plan in place as it begins service between California and Hawaii.

That game plan is very vividly on display in new wall hangings adorning Southwest’s ETOPS Center in Oakland, California, where pilots plan their long over-water flights to Hawaii.

Visitors to the center (and pilots) should have no trouble deciphering the message behind what’s on the wall — a giant shark with Southwest branding is seen in hot pursuit of two much smaller (and potentially vulnerable) fishes. One of the smaller fish has the Alaska Airlines (NYSE: ALK) livery while the other is emblazoned with the livery of Hawaiian Airlines (NASDAQ: HA), the flag carrier of the island paradise to which Southwest now flies.

Southwest’s message here is crystal clear — in ferocious fashion Southwest expects to devour its principal competition from California to the islands.

Both Hawaiian and Alaska airlines fly many flights daily from the West Coast to the island state that Southwest is now so intently focused on serving for the first time ever. Southwest's inaugural flight took off Sunday from Oakland International Airport and landed more than five hours later in Honolulu.

Multiple sources noted that Southwest CEO Gary Kelly has declared 2019 will be “all about Hawaii."

But he now might be distracted a bit by the Boeing (NYSE: BA) MAX 8 crisis that erupted last week when the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all of that model plane indefinitely. Southwest, with 34 of the controversial aircraft, has the most MAX 8s in the world, though none are being used to Hawaii.

Meanwhile, the shark imagery in Southwest’s ETOPS center has been making the rounds among the airline’s employees.