Southwest Airlines entered the airline industry in 1971 with little money but lots of personality. Marketing itself as the LUV airline, the company featured a bright red heart as its first logo and relied on outrageous antics to generate word of mouth and new business. Flight attendants in red-orange hot pants served Love Bites (peanuts) and Love Potions (drinks). As Southwest grew, its advertising showcased its focus on low fares, frequent flights, on-time arrivals, top safety record, and how bags fly free. Throughout all its communication efforts, Southwest uses humor to poke fun at itself and convey its warm, friendly personality. One TV spot showed a small bag of peanuts with the words, “This is what our meals look like at Southwest Airlines. . . . It’s also what our fares look like.” Its ongoing “Wanna Get Away?” campaign uses embarrassing situations to hit a funny bone with consumers. And its tagline: “Ding! You are now free to move around the country” is a self-parody of its in-flight announcements. This lighthearted attitude carries over to the entertaining on-board announcements, crews that burst into song in the terminal, and several personalized aircrafts, including three painted as flying killer whales, “Lone Star One” painted like the Texas flag, and “Slam Dunk One,” symbolizing the airline’s partnership with the NBA. Southwest’s business model is based on streamlining its operations, which results in low fares and satisfied consumers. The airline takes several steps to save money and passes the savings to customers through low fares. It flies over 3,100 short, “point-to-point” trips in a day—shuttling more passengers per plane than any other airline. Each aircraft makes an average of 6.25 flights a day, or almost 12 hours each day. Southwest can accomplish such a feat because it avoids the traditional hub-and-spoke system and has extremely fast turnaround service. In its early years, it turned planes around in less than 10minutes. Today, its turnaround averages 20 to 30 minutes—still the best in the industry and half the industry average. Southwest’s unique boarding process helps. Instead of assigned seating, passengers are assigned to one of three