This is the sixth in a series of posts about our integrated annual report, the 2010 Southwest Airlines One Report™, where we have illustrated our commitment to a triple bottomline and how our passion and focus on Performance, People, and Planet continues to propel us forward.
Many companies call the cities in which they operate “markets, ” but at
Southwest Airlines, we like to call these cities our “communities.” Each one is special to us and unique in its own way. These communities are home to our favorite People: our Employees and Customers! We believe investing in the community is ultimately an investment in our most important asset: Our People. It’s our goal to support the passion points and effect positive change in the communities where our Employees and our Customers live and work. By teaming up with our community partners, Employees, and our Customers, we work together to achieve health, prosperity, and positive change in our hometowns.
While 2010 presented its own set of challenges to not only our industry, but also our country, the 2010 Southwest Airlines One Report™ celebrates some exciting achievements in our communities—achievements like an overall $13.9 million investment of tickets and cash directly back into our communities, and taking our partnership with the National Wildlife Refuge Association up a notch with our first cause-marketing effort, the “Help Us, Help Them” giving campaign in response to the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill. In 2010, Southwest also joined our nonprofit partners dedicated to supporting the military and its families by declaring November “Military Heroes Month” and dedicated the entire month to sharing the stories of these nonprofits with the Southwest audience. Our community partners represent the diversity of our Customers and Employees and include organizations like The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, and the Black Voice Foundation.
That last ten years forced us all to think outside of the box for ways to remain prosperous and profitable. It also taught us that our prosperity hinges on the health and vitality of the communities in which we operate. We learned that we are stronger together as our Employees, Customers, and Communities came together to make the world in which we live a better place. We know that we, as a Company, do well by doing good. That is one of the many reasons we now report on our annual community giving and annual financials in the same document. In 2010, our Company simultaneously said “goodbye” to a tumultuous decade and laid the groundwork for a future full of hope.
We are proud of our commitment to being a good citizen of the world. We look forward to sharing the journey with you in our blog post series on Performance, People, and Planet, and we hope it will inspire you to read our 2010 Southwest Airlines One Report™, which, in an effort to conserve our natural resources, can only be found online at
www.southwest.com/citizenship.
