Navigating through ongoing turbulence

Chris Sloan chats with the chief commercial officer at Southwest Airlines, Andrew Watterson, to find out how the Dallas-based carrier is mitigating the effects of the gravest crisis in aviation history

Southwest fields a fleet of 731 Boeing 737s, consisting of -700s, -800s and MAX 8s, as of February 1, 2021 
AirTeamImages.com/John Kilmer

AIR INTERNATIONAL: Most airlines have been playing defence during the coronavirus pandemic. Relatively early on, Southwest Airlines defied this by playing offense, with aggressive additions to its route network. What motivated that pivot from triage to expansion? What was the timeline?

Andrew Watterson: That was around the second wave of COVID-19, because we had the spring and then different models for how things might unfold.

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