Post by @theventure

Southwest sold a quarter of its fleet to make payroll, and that is how it found the thing that made money for the next 47 years. Being poor forced a question nobody else had to ask. Every other airline owned enough aircraft, so an hour parked between flights was normal and nobody examined it. Southwest had three planes and a four plane schedule, so they had to work out how fast a jet could be emptied, refilled and sent back up. The answer was ten minutes. A plane only earns money in the air, and Southwest was getting close to a third more flying out of every aircraft it owned. Several big airlines tried to copy it and none of them managed. A ten minute turn only works if everything else bends around it: one type of aircraft, no assigned seats, no meals, no bags handed to other airlines, and no hub to feed. Copying Southwest meant dismantling the system they had built their entire business on. Southwest made money for 47 straight years and never laid off an employee. Herb also once settled a trademark dispute by arm wrestling the other chairman with a cigarette in his teeth. He lost, and the man handed over the slogan anyway. Follow @theventure for the greatest founder stories ever told.