Abstract
In 1998, US airlines carried a record of 551 million passengers1. At that time,the whole industry was in a pretty good shape2. Unfortunately, many things have changed since then. The 2001 terrorist attacks on the twin towers have marked a turnaround in the United States of America's history, and especially in the Airlines industry. From that time, people avoid flying too much and new restrictions arose, which made traveling sometimes inconvenient. As a result, thousands of employees were laid off, many airlines went bankrupt, and the Congress had to pass a $15 billion bailout package in order to reduce damages. Within this difficult context and the phenomenon of strong competition some have taken the turn of the 'low cost service' in order to attract more people and different economic classes. Some of them have done well in comparison to old school major companies. In this case we find Southwest Airlines, which has been the most profitable airline company since 19733.
