How much is Southwest Airlines mourning the passing of founder and former CEO Herb Kelleher? A lot, apparently.
The low-fare carrier has issued an unusual internal memo obtained by the Chicago Business Journal. The memo says in part that “to commemorate our beloved founder and celebrate his life, (Southwest) frontline employees will be able to wear previous Southwest uniforms beginning Jan.7 through Jan. 13.”
But for anyone hoping to see VERY veteran Southwest flight attendants in the iconic and fun hot pants and form-fitting mini-skirts that grabbed the flying public’s attention in the 1970s when Kelleher started Southwest, you will be out of luck.
The lengthy memo goes on to indicate in some detail what each frontline worker can actually put on for the next week in memory of Kelleher. For flight attendants, the carrier is only allowing “any company-issued uniform shirt or sweater” as originally issued and in good condition.
That directive, of course, immediately rules out the short skirts and hot pants that were all the rage nearly 50 years ago.
Southwest management, however, will allow flight attendants to wear vintage uniform accessories, including wings, scarves and ties, along with “red/yellow/blue ribbons (one of each) color no larger than two inches in diameter.” Those ribbons must be worn with a flight attendant’s uniform and displayed beneath the FA’s wings.
But flight attendants overnighting in Mexico won’t have the same latitude FAs working domestically will have. The Kelleher uniform memo said any flight attendant “overnighting in Mexico must abide by current uniform guidelines.”
The uniform rules for Southwest customer service agents and ops agents wishing to remember Kelleher are pretty much identical to those outlined for flight attendants, except that ground personnel do not have to display the wings required of inflight employees.
Southwest pilots get to honor Kelleher too, but they can only do so with vintage ties or scarves and the aforementioned ribbons.
Ramp agents, cargo agents and other so-called “below the wing” employees at Southwest get a break in the uniform memo. They can wear “any company-issued uniform piece," vintage or current. As far as anyone knows, ramp agents and such never sported hot pants or mini-skirts back in the day when Kelleher ran the airline.
So, of course, they get more leeway in how they honor Kelleher with their uniform choices.
Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) has its largest hub at Chicago’s Midway International Airport.
