Who Founded Southwest Airlines?

Gary Kelly served as Southwest's CEO for nearly two decades, overseeing the airline's expansion to national scale, the transformative AirTran acquisition, the Wright Amendment repeal, and the industry-wide challenges of the post-9/11 recovery, the 2008 financial crisis, and the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kelly was an accountant and financial executive by background, and his tenure was characterized by disciplined balance sheet management that gave Southwest the financial resilience to weather multiple industry crises. Critics have argued that Kelly's era was also characterized by underinvestment in the technology infrastructure that the December 2022 meltdown exposed as inadequate. Kelly stepped down as Executive Chairman in October 2024 as part of the settlement with Elliott Advisors.

Southwest stayed profitable in each year of his term. He retired in July 2004 and Gary Kelly succeeded him.

Herb Kelleher is the defining figure of Southwest Airlines' history and arguably the most influential airline executive in American aviation. His tenure as CEO from 1982 through 2001 transformed Southwest from a regional Texas curiosity into the most consistently profitable airline in U.S. Aviation history, executing a disciplined expansion strategy that entered one new market at a time, maintained the core low-fare, high-frequency model, and institutionalized a corporate culture so distinctive that it became the subject of business school case studies worldwide. Kelleher's management philosophy put employees first, customers second, shareholders third was radical in its explicit prioritization of workforce satisfaction over near-term financial metrics, and its validation through Southwest's notable 47-year profit streak made it one of the most widely discussed management frameworks of the late twentieth century. His personal engagement with frontline employees working baggage ramps on holidays, attending employee events, responding to individual correspondence created a psychological contract between the company and its workforce that generated exceptional productivity and loyalty for decades.