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Southwest Airlines Community

Behind the Scenes: Citizenship at Southwest Airlines Helps Improve our Global Impact

kitrickm
Employee
Employee

At Southwest Airlines, we’re famous for what we offer to our Customers—friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel. We connect millions of our Customers to the things that matter most with 4,000 daily departures and our legendary Hospitality.

 

We are also a proud leader in community and Employee engagement, financial performance, and environmental stewardship. All of these elements are what help to make up our dedication to corporate citizenship. Corporate citizenship focuses on reducing costs and negative impacts, while maximizing benefits for Stakeholders in three areas: People, Planet, and Performance. Through our citizenship efforts, we strive to make a positive impact by promoting efficiency, reducing natural resource consumption, and supporting the well-being of our Employees and the communities we serve.

 

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Citizenship incorporates various facets that fit together to make up our holistic approach at Southwest. With so many aspects to citizenship, how do we share our work with the world? One of the best ways is through the Southwest Airlines One Report. The One Report, published annually, helps people understand Southwest’s impact on their day-to-day lives, the economy, and the environment.

 

2018 One Report Highlights

Performance:

  • No. 1 Marketing Carrier in Customer Satisfaction per the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) data*
  • Celebrated 46 consecutive years of profitability
  • Returned approximately $2.3 billion to Shareholders through share repurchases and dividends

People:

  • Gave more than $25.2 million total corporate monetary, in-kind, and ticket donations
  • Served more than 134 million Customers, an all-time annual record
  • Employees earned $544 million in ProfitSharing for 2018

Planet:

  • Improved jet fuel efficiency by 32.8% on a revenue ton mile basis since 2005
  • Diverted 3,348 tons of waste from landfills through recycling and energy recovery efforts
  • Committed to purchase three million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel per year, with the first fuel to be delivered in 2020

Telling our Story

The One Report purposely aligns with citizenship’s three pillars, and helps us share our Southwest Story with the world. With great highlights of the incredible work our People undertake, the One Report demonstrates “why” we feel it is important to be a good corporate citizen.

 

“Writing and documenting the stories we include in the One Report really is a months' long labor of love,” said Manager of Investor Relations Peggy Jansen. “A cross-functional Team comes together to engage subject matter experts across Southwest to capture Southwest's impact as a corporation. By the time we have a finished product more than 100 Employees will have contributed to the One Report!”

 

The One Report allows Customers to learn more about Southwest and areas of the business that they might not be familiar with. “Our One Report is an inside look into the behind the scenes business of Southwest Airlines. It really is our commitment to our People and a beautiful overview of who Southwest is,” said Director of Corporate Communications Katie Coldwell. “The One Report gives us an opportunity to highlight the good works we are doing and is a chance to step back and appreciate the innovations our Employees bring toward our commitment to citizenship,” Coldwell added.

 

What are you waiting for? Whether you’re in the air or on the ground, check out the 2018 One Report now at SouthwestOneReport.com!

 

*Source: Air Travel Consumer Reports. Rankings based on complaints filled with the Department of Transportation (DOT) per 100,000 passengers served. Southwest tied for 1st place in the DOT's Year-to-Date (YTD) Customer Service ranking among Operating Carriers. Southwest was by far #1 among Marketing Carriers. An Operating Carrier can be an airline that only operates flights on behalf of another/larger carrier (i.e. "Branded Codeshare Partner") or any airline that sells and flies under its own brand (a.k.a. "Marketing Carrier").

1 Comment
Devin4Climate
Explorer C

These things all sound great but why has Southwest partnered with the largest funder of extreme fossil fuels (tar sands, arctic drilling, coal funding...), UP Morgan Chase for their credit card?  There is a major divestment campaign against Chase.  This is well illustrated by the Rainforest action network study on climate change banking.   My wife and I are divesting from all Chase accounts (bank accounts, 401k mutual funds and our Southwest Rapid Rewards credit card).  This will unfortunately mean that we will fly Southwest a lot less. 

 

I am sure that many banks would want to do business with Southwest and pressure from a big client like Southwest could pressure chase to stop hastening our collective demise.