Can we get the magic back? Absolutely! On October 13, 2014 we will celebrate the end of the Wright A

Ten union leaders at Southwest Airlines have sent a letter to chairman and CEO Gary Kelly telling him that employee morale at the Dallas carrier is the worst it’s ever been and that action is needed to restore the “magic.”
“Can we get the magic back? Absolutely! On October 13, 2014 we will celebrate the end of the Wright Amendment and the beginning of a new future for Southwest Airlines. While this pivotal event in our history will be marked by the stroke of a clock, another can be marked by the stroke of a pen,” said the union leadership letter.
sports ticket agencies “What would make this event more momentous is labor and management standing united with signed contracts, ready to move forward and Kick Tail,” they added. “The message it will send Wall Street and our Customers will be loud and clear Southwest Airlines is back and better than ever.”
“What concerns us greatly, however, is the rapid deterioration of our once-great Culture; morale has dropped to an all-time low,” the letter stated. “The strife between our unions and management has begun to resemble that of an air carrier facing bankruptcy when ultimately sports ticket agencies we are at a time that our morale should be at an all-time high.”
The letter was signed by all unions or union locals at Southwest except for Transport Workers Union Local 556, which represents the carrier’s 10,000-plus flight attendants. Most of the groups are currently in negotiations with Southwest.
I can also assure you we have the same interests at heart in regards to contracts. I am fully committed to signing agreements this year that are cost effective and reward our Employees for the great work they do, recognizing that we have the most generous contracts sports ticket agencies in the industry. Still, we must not sacrifice the future of the airline by rendering Southwest less competitive or sacrificing our precious Low-Fare Brand. As we have always done, we must consider how today’s decisions will impact tomorrow, if we truly want to secure Southwest’s future and to maintain job and financial security for our nearly 46,000 Employees.
Keep reading for the letter to Kelly, followed by Kelly’s sports ticket agencies response. ( NOTE, Monday, June 16, 2014 : Kelly s letter has this wording: Thank you for the thoughtful note. We should all be proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past few years. I credit our success to hard work, determination, good choices, and good execution . When I originally typed it in, I mistakenly typed good executives . That caused an entirely different slant to the sentence, for which I apologize to Southwest and Gary Kelly.)
We would like to congratulate you on a record-breaking first quarter. It is truly remarkable that in such a tumultuous industry, we have been able to maintain our profitability. This has not been the case with many of our competitors, many of whom have not been as lucky over the past decade.
Accordingly, our stock price has risen impressively over the past year, and that is something of which we can all be proud. What concerns sports ticket agencies us greatly, however, is the rapid deterioration of our once-great Culture; sports ticket agencies morale has dropped to an all-time low. The strife between our unions and management has begun to resemble that of an air carrier facing bankruptcy when ultimately we are at a time that our morale should be at an all-time high. The Wall Street media is even beginning to notice, as evidenced by two articles recently written in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News. One quote from the Bloomberg article is particularly telling: “When things used to be so good, it’s hard for either shareholders or labor to concede that the magic is gone.”
Is the magic gone? To many, it would seem so. We once had a system so efficient that it was the envy of the industry. Now, with ramp staffing at minimum levels relying on mandatory sports ticket agencies double shifts, our operational sports ticket agencies performance is suffering. The delays that continue to plague us are leaving our Customer sports ticket agencies Service Agents overworked and unable to provide passengers the level of Positively Outrageous Customer Service that they deserve and expect. Holiday letters sent to our Employees by you and Mike Van de Ven made us all feel that we are liabilities to the bottom sports ticket agencies line, and not the assets sports ticket agencies that we were hired to be.
Can we get the magic back? Absolutely! On October 13, 2014 we will celebrate the end of the Wright Amendment and the beginning of a new future for Southwest Airlines. While this pivotal event in our history will be marked by the stroke of a clock, another can be marked by the stroke of a pen. What would make this event more momentous is labor and management sports ticket agencies standing united with signed contracts, ready to move forward and Kick Tail. The message it will send Wall Street and our Customers will be loud and clear Southwest Airlines is back and better than ever.
The Southwest sports ticket agencies Culture is the reason that most of us thought of working here as a dream job when we were new hires. With our latest problems, we have thousands of AirTran employees who haven’t had an opportunity to see this Culture and enjoy it the way that we have in the past. What better time than now to make us all the start of something new, something stronger? With a shift back to our roots, where the Employee came first, the Customer second and the Investors third, you can be guaranteed that our old formula for success will not only still work, but it will work better than ever. You can rest assured that happy Employees will create even more demand sports ticket agencies for our Southwest product and the profits will certainly reflect that. Please stand with us and let’s get to work on what we all do best: Operating the world’s best airline.
Thank you for the thoughtful note. We should all be proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past few years. I credit our success to hard work, determination, sports ticket agencies good choices, and good execution – as opposed to luck. Stable jet fuel prices have been a critical factor, too. While our competition has endured sports ticket agencies bankruptcies and job loss, we’ve continued to implement creative solutions to evolve our business and remain profitable. We’ve accomplished this great feat by working together, and I agree – it is truly remarkable. I appreciate and share your Spirit for this great Company, its vibrant sports ticket agencies Culture, and its continued success. The lion’s share of my life is dedicated to preserving our Culture and serving our People. As a Company, we invest more today in our Culture and People than ever before – an example of this can be seen in FORTUNE Magazine’s June 2 article titled “Coolest jobs in the Fortune 500.”
We are a high-profile Company. Media coverage of Southwest is overwhelmingly positive, but we certainly have our share of less than positive coverage. We can’t base the Company’s health assessment or the pulse of our Culture on media articles. It’s the conversations that I have with our Employees, the glowing letters that I received from Customers, and the many challenges that we conquer sports ticket agencies together, on a daily basis, that tell me the magic of this airline is alive and well. Like any successful Company, we continue to evolve – but our compass continues to point Southwest. We do many things differently today than we did 10, 20, or 30 years ago – we’ve been forced to shift our business to compete in a completely changed marketplace. And, in fact, you could say the same thing at any point in our history. But, we are the same Company at heart, with the same set of core values, the same Mission, and the same Purpose. That is, to connect our Customers to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel. We are the LUV airline, headquartered at Love Field, with the heart in our logo.
I can also assure you we have the same interests at heart in regards to contracts. I am fully committed to signing agreements this year that are cost effective and reward our Employees for the great work they do, recognizing that we have the most generous contracts in the industry. Still, we must not sacrifice the future of the airline by rendering Southwest less competitive or sacrificing our precious Low-Fare Brand. As we have always done, we must consider how today’s decisions will impact sports ticket agencies tomorrow, if we truly want to secure Southwest’s future and to maintain job and financial security for our nearly 46,000 Employees.
We are a Family at Southwest Airlines. And, like any Family, we must continue to communicate and work through sports ticket agencies challenges together. That’s nothing new – it’s always sports ticket agencies been the case, and it always will be. Ultimately, we all must work together toward the same goal of offering Customers low fares with outstanding Customer Service, and we must continue to face obstacles together. sports ticket agencies Our Company and our People’s future depend on it.
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