Word: southwester
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Southwest Airlines has used just such perverse tactics to accomplish what no other big carrier has during the current aviation downturn, the industry's worst: make consistent operating profits. As others struggle in bankruptcy, lay off flight crews and mechanics, and cut routes, the seventh largest airline has been merrily expanding to new cities, buying more airplanes and hiring personnel. As a gauge of customer satisfaction, the airline says it receives 3,500 favorable letters a month...
...Southwest's formula is starkly simple: keep costs at rock-bottom. Using only fuel-thrifty 737s, it concentrates on flying large numbers of passengers on high-frequency, one-hour hops directly from city to city, rather than funneling them through the elaborate hub-and-spoke systems of its larger rivals. The lack of amenities enables it to offer bargain fares (average: $58) that undercut others and allow Southwest to quickly dominate most new routes it enters. Boasts CEO and co-founder Herb Kelleher: "We've created a solid niche -- our main competition is the automobile. We're taking people away...
When it was a Texas puddle jumper, Southwest and its fun-loving chairman were dismissed as an oddity. But now that the Dallas-based airline has made money for 20 straight years and spread to 34 cities in 15 states, the industry is paying it sober respect. Concedes Gerard Arpey, senior vice president of American Airlines: "Unless we can find a way to lower our own costs, they're going to drive us out of many markets." Southwest has been wreaking turmoil in California, where intrastate fares averaged $200 before it shook up the market in 1991 with $59 tickets...
...encourages such zany antics by his flight attendants as organizing trivia contests, delivering instructions in rap and awarding prizes for the passengers with the largest holes in their socks. The wackiness has a calculated purpose -- to generate a gung-ho spirit that will boost productivity, the key to Southwest's goal of carefully scripted growth...
Hostility in Somalia is more than an emotion; it is virtually a way of life. Some details began to surface last week about one of the civil war's worst atrocities, which allegedly began shortly before U.S. Marines landed at Mogadishu. In the port city of Kismayu, 250 miles southwest of the capital, up to 200 leading members of the Harti clan, including religious leaders, businessmen and doctors, were reportedly dragged from their homes and shot during several nights of terror. The killing spree was said to have been ordered by Kismayu's de facto boss, the warlord Colonel Omar...