All You Need is Love: Southwest Airlines and the Wright Amendment (a)

Abstract

The first of a three-case series, this is a classic business-government relations (BGR) challenge for Southwest Airlines. The A case takes the student from the problems SWA had with competitors and the Civil Aviation Board in the early years of attempting to fly through the passage of the Wright Amendment in the late 1970s. House Majority Leader Jim Wright championed the cause for the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Authority and the big DFW airlines, most prominently American Airlines. The case then updates the situation 25 years later, when SWA is a big airline and the events of September 11, 2001, hurt the short-haul business of low-cost airlines. The case presents BGR strategies of SWA over time. Excerpt UVA-GEM-0116 Rev. Apr. 15, 2014 ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE: SOUTHWEST AIRLINES AND THE WRIGHT AMENDMENT (A) The warrior mentality, the very fight to survive, is truly what created our culture. —Colleen Barrett, President and Corporate Secretary, Southwest Airlines Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, contemplated the many years of hard-fought battles that Southwest Airlines and its employees had endured. Throughout this time, Southwest had always been able to rise above its combatants and continue to grow its successful operation. With the enactment of the Wright Amendment, Southwest had suffered its first defeat, not at the hands of competition in the free market, but by Congress and the administrators of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The History of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport . . .