Southwest Airlines is the fifth largest airline in the United States.
Southwest is tied with 6 other (major) US airline companies for having never had a passenger fatality in ther entire history. They have flown more than four times as many passengers as the second largest of those six, America West. The other four airlines, Midway, JetBlue, Hawaiian, and America Trans, have pathetically short records and statistically haven't flown enough to meet their first fatal accident, unless AirTran (ValuJet) and Midwest are taken into account, with their extremely high fatality rate owing to very low passenger numbers and a single incident each. Besides ValuJet and Midwest, five other smaller airlines have experienced passenger fatalities: Air Canada, Alaskan Airlines, Aloha Airlines, Continental Airlines, and Northwest Airlines. The closest airline to Southwest's experience level, Northwest, has experienced 4 separate fatal incidents, and thus has a roughly average safety record. The second closest, Continental, has a better safety record than Northwest, with only 3 fatal events.
Compared to larger airlines, Southwest has a little over half the number of passengers carried as United Airlines and American Airlines. Both United and American, excluding the 9-11 hijackings, have had 10 and 9 fatal incidents in their history, respecively. If 9-11 is included, they're at 11 and 10 respectively. Delta, on the other had, which has flown just over twice as much as Southwest, has had merely 6. US Airways has flown about 50% more than Southwest, and accounts for 9 fatal incidents. Statistically, there are no exceptions: Southwest, by all rights, should have 3 to 5 incidents that resulted in passenger fatalities. Fires, runway crashes, instrument failure, something should have gone wrong. But it hasn't even had one. out of 9,500,000 people flown around, nothing has ever gone wrong enough that someone has died on a Southwest Airlines flight.
At least 10% of all stock in Southwest Airlines is owned by employees. The average passenger airfare is $86.64. The average passenger trip length is 723 miles. Southwest boasts the best on-time record, best baggage handling, and fewest customer complaints in the airline industry. Southwest is the only airline that has made money every year since 1973, with stock value up more than 500% since 1990. An investment of $1000 in Southwest stock in 1973 would be worth over $1.8 million today. Southwest's stock trades at about 20 times on earnings, double the industry standard. Southwest serves around 2,400 customers per employee anually, double its competetors' average. They have never permanently laid off an employee.
( The History of Southwest Airlines Incidents Since 1983 )
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