Coordinates: 32°50′48″N 96°51′40″W / 32.8467°N 96.861°W / 32.8467; -96.861 (Southwest Airlines Headquarters)

Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) is a major U.S. airline and the world's largest low-cost carrier, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The airline was established in 1967 by Herb Kelleher and adopted its current name (Southwest Airlines) in 1971. The airline has nearly 46,000 employees as of December 2014 and operates more than 3,800 flights per day. As of 2014, it carries the most domestic passengers of any U.S. airline. As of January 2016, Southwest Airlines has scheduled service to 97 destinations in 40 states, Puerto Rico, and abroad.

Southwest Airlines has used only Boeing 737s, except for several years in the 1970s and 1980s, when it leased some Boeing 727s from Braniff. As of January 2016, Southwest is the largest operator of the Boeing 737 worldwide, with over 700 in service, each averaging six flights per day.

History

Early history

Southwest Airlines began with the March 15, 1967, incorporation of Air Southwest Co. by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher to fly within the state of Texas.

Southwest Airlines is a major United States airline.

Other similarly named airlines:

Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) was a United States airline headquartered in San Diego, California, that operated from 1949 to 1988. It was the first large discount airline in the United States. PSA called itself "The World's Friendliest Airline" and painted a smile on the nose of its airplanes, the PSA Grinningbirds. Opinion L.A. of the Los Angeles Times called PSA "practically the unofficial flag carrier airline of California for almost 40 years." The airline initially operated as an intrastate air carrier wholly within California before expanding to other destinations in other states following the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.

PSA was one of the four airlines that formed US Airways, the others being America West Airlines, Piedmont Airlines and Allegheny Airlines. US Airways merged with American Airlines in 2013.

PSA's Boeing customer number was 14. Following the acquisition by and merger with USAir, the PSA name was given to Jetstream International Airlines by US Airways to preserve the PSA name and trademarks.

Pacific Southwest Airlines flight 1771 was a commercial flight that crashed near Cayucos, California, United States, on December 7, 1987, as a result of a murder–suicide by one of the passengers. All 43 people on board the aircraft died, five of whom were shot to death before the plane crashed, including the two pilots. The man who caused the crash, David A. Burke, was a disgruntled former employee of USAir, the parent company of PSA.

The incident

USAir had recently purchased Pacific Southwest Airlines. Burke, a ticket agent, had been recently terminated by USAir for petty theft of $69 from in-flight cocktail receipts and had also been suspected of other theft including receipts totaling thousands of dollars. After meeting with Ray Thomson, his manager, in an unsuccessful attempt to be reinstated, Burke purchased a ticket on PSA flight 1771, a daily flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Thomson was a passenger on the flight, which he regularly took for his daily commute from his workplace at LAX to his home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Pacific Southwest is a region of the United States. It encompasses five states: California, Arizona, Hawaii, Utah, and Nevada. The region is one of cultural diversity seen all over. Several major urban areas lie within the region, including the San Francisco Bay Area and Salt Lake City. With the exception of Hawaii, four of the five states share similar historical backgrounds.

Largest cities

Culture

Cultures combine and collaborate in the Pacific Southwest. Traces of the Old American West can still be seen in some areas, especially in the deserts. Hip-hop is one of the many cultures prevalent here, most noticeable in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Polynesian culture flourishes in Hawaii, and Hawaiian Pidgin can still be heard in certain areas of the state. Spanish/Mexican culture is the most visible in the region, due to the fact four of the five states were once Spanish/Mexican possessions. Cowboys can be found anywhere in the Pacific Southwest. Hawaii has its own version of the American cowboy, the paniolo. Asian culture is demonstrated in the region, especially in California and Hawaii. The area also has a sizeable black population, along with Arabic and Jewish culture.