Colourful lawyer was co-founder and boss of biggest domestic airline in the US

Kelleher would ride into company gatherings on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, sometimes singing Blue Suede Shoes while dressed as Elvis.

Herb Kelleher Airline chief b March 12, 1931 d January 3, 2018

Herb Kelleher, the charismatic and colourful co-founder of Southwest Airlines, was hardly a cookie-cutter chief executive. He showed up at company parties dressed as Elvis Presley, invited employees to a weekly cookout, handled baggage during the Thanksgiving rush and brought doughnuts to a hangar at 4am for his airline’s mechanics.

He once arm-wrestled an executive from another company to settle a legal dispute, and never hid his fondness for cigarettes and bourbon. Yet he was considered a visionary business leader whose record of sustained success at Southwest led Fortune magazine to ask on its cover:

‘‘Is Herb Kelleher

America’s best

CEO?’’

Kelleher, once a New Jersey lawyer, won a court case in 1971 allowing Southwest to begin operating in Texas. With its innovative, nofrills approach, it became the country’s most profitable and most imitated airline. Once a feisty upstart, it is now the largest domestic carrier in the United States, with annual revenues approaching US$25 billion.

No cause of death was provided for Kelleher, who was 87. He was treated for prostate cancer nearly 20 years ago. When asked if his five-pack-a-day smoking habit may have caused his cancer, he quipped: ‘‘I don’t smoke with my prostate.’’

His instinctive, self-taught management style has been studied in business schools and emulated at countless companies. At Southwest, he created what he called a ‘‘culture of commitment’’, in which employees – not customers – came first. The idea was simple: happy workers would lead to happy passengers, thus giving the airline a competitive edge.

‘‘What’s important,’’ he told Forbes, ‘‘is that a customer should get off the airplane feeling, ‘I didn’t just get from A to B. I had one of the most pleasant experiences I ever had and I’ll be back for that reason.’ ’’

Hiring the right people, he believed, was a leader’s most crucial task. ‘‘What we are looking for first and foremost is a sense of humour.’’ Southwest flight attendants became known for telling corny jokes over the cabin intercom and for silly gags, such as awarding prizes to passengers with holes in their socks.

‘‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,’’ one flight attendant announced, after smoking was no longer permitted on commercial flights. ‘‘Those of you who wish to smoke will please file out to our lounge on the wing, where you can enjoy our feature film, Gone With the Wind.’’

Southwest was founded in 1967, when Kelleher was working as a lawyer for Texas businessman Rollin W King. They sketched out a plan on a cocktail napkin, as legend has it, to open a short-haul airline with cheap flights connecting Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. Kelleher chipped in $10,000 of his own money. The company lost money for two years and was forced to sell one of its three planes. But by its third year, it was turning a profit.

There was no cooked food on a Southwest flight, only drinks and crackers or peanuts, which Kelleher sometimes served himself. (In 2000, the company removed three peanuts from each packet, saving US$300,000 a year.)

Kelleher would ride into company gatherings on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, sometimes singing Blue Suede Shoes while dressed as Elvis.

But his favourite stunt came in 1991, when Southwest was threatened with legal action by Stevens Aviation, a small company in South Carolina. At the time, Southwest’s advertising slogan was ‘‘Just Plane Smart’’. It claimed to be unaware Stevens Aviation already had ‘‘Plane Smart’’ as its motto.

Kelleher proposed that he and Stevens Aviation chairman Kurt Herwald settle matters with an arm-wrestling match. ‘‘Rather than pay a team of lawyers, Herwald and I decided to wrestle it out at the Sportatorium in Dallas,’’ Kelleher said. ‘‘It was a hoot. The whole world focused on it. The BBC called to interview me in London. I told them I was too busy training.’’

In photographs of his ‘‘training’’, Kelleher was shown lifting bottles of bourbon in both hands as a cigarette dangled from his lips.

More than 1000 spectators attended the ‘‘Malice in Dallas’’ showdown. ‘‘In the end,’’ Kelleher said, ‘‘I got trounced.’’

But all was not lost. He and Herwald became fast friends, and they agreed both companies could share the ‘‘Plane Smart’’ slogan.

Herbert David Kelleher was born in Camden, New Jersey. He was 12 when his father, an executive with the Campbell Soup Company, died. An older brother was killed in World War II.

Survivors include his wife, the former Joan Negley; three of their four children; and numerous grandchildren. – Washington Post

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