This provided the model for King and Kelleher, who used Air California's investment bankers and two of its founders to raise money for Air Southwest. In 1967 a new airline, Air California, had made an initial public offering before the company had actually started flying. An independent marketing consulting group, hired with $150,000 donated by seven of their San Antonio friends, helped to convince King and Kelleher of the project's viability. King convinced his banker, John Parker, of the Alamo National Bank in San Antonio, to conduct a feasibility study for an airline that would serve the market at a time when the three cities involved were among the fastest growing in the nation. Kelleher thought King was crazy but, after doing some homework, decided that he was just crazy enough to go along with the plan. Service between these cities had been provided by Braniff Airways and Trans-Texas Airways (later Texas International Airlines), but usually as a leg of longer, interstate flights. Before his death, King admitted no napkin was involved, but it made a “hell of a good story.” The plan was supposedly drawn on a napkin, and, at Southwest headquarters, the story was commemorated on a plaque duplicating the napkin on which King drew the proposed route system. A legendary story recalled that the two men met at a San Antonio restaurant and bar and ordered drinks to plot their aviation venture. Instead of flying to small towns, King suggested serving the three largest cities in Texas-Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas-by offering low fares, convenient schedules, and a "no-frills" approach that was completely contrary to the standards of the established airlines. The venture King proposed sounded a lot like his old business but with a slight twist. Kelleher was a young attorney, a transplanted Yankee who sank his roots into his wife's hometown, San Antonio, and King was his client. ![]() In 1967 King met with Herb Kelleher to discuss a new business venture. Though Wild Goose was never profitable, it was the seed for the present airline. In 1964 he acquired and reincorporated as Southwest Airlines, Incorporated, a small air-taxi service called Wild Goose Flying Service, which did business as Southwest Airlines between San Antonio and such small South Texas cities as Del Rio and Laredo. from Harvard University in 1962, King had moved to San Antonio to become a partner in the newly-formed investment-counsel firm King, Pitman and Company. Rollin King, entrepreneur and cofounder of Southwest, served as the airline's first chairman, president, and chief executive officer, and he was for many years the company's largest shareholder. As of April 2022 Southwest operated commercial flights to 106 domestic destinations with fifteen international destinations, including Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.īefore 1967, when it was incorporated, the company was known as Air Southwest. carrier to introduce a profit-sharing plan for employees. ![]() At inception the company only operated intrastate as a Texas airline establishing itself as a high frequency, high volume, low-fare, point-to-point carrier. Southwest Airlines, headquartered in Dallas, is a publicly held airline that began with an initial tendering of 650,000 shares offered at approximately $11 a share beginning on June 8, 1971.
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