Southwest Airlines Customer Representatives Receive Surprise Calls From Top Executives

Pilots and flight attendants are commonly regarded as having the hardest jobs in the airline industry, but there is also a little-talked-about group of employees who have to uphold themselves to the highest standard in the face of dissatisfied passengers – Customer Service Representatives.

These unsung heroes at Southwest Airlines got a surprise last week when they picked up their phones and found the airlines’ top executives on the other end, thanking them and expressing appreciation for the work they do.

The boss is on line one

Employees at Southwest’s Customer Support & Services (CS&S) Department were pleasantly surprised on November 7th when they received personal phone calls from the airline’s President & CEO, Bob Jordan; COO, Andrew Watterson; Senior Vice President of Operations and Hospitality, Steve Goldberg; and Vice President of Customer Support & Services, James Ashworth. Each executive personally thanked the employees on the phone for the work they do in assisting the airlines’ passengers on a daily basis.

Regarding the experience, President & CEO of Southwest Bob Jordan had the following to say:

“I wish I could tell every one of our 75,000 employees ‘thank you’ for all they do.”

He went on to say,

“Our Culture and our People set us apart, and to me, our Culture is simple. We hire great People who are low ego, and they look to serve others before they look to serve themselves. That’s what I heard on the phone today.”

Photo: Southwest Airlines

While the airlines’ top executives were on the phone, over 300 corporate employees also volunteered to make about 1,500 calls to 714 coworkers, whom they nickname ‘Cohearts.’ The calls were made during an event that the airline calls Heart 2 Heart Connection, which took place at Southwest’s Corporate Campus in Dallas, Texas.

A tough job

Customer Support is no easy task at any airline, from having to deal with irate passengers who have lost their luggage to managing booking errors. It is a position that demands patience, resilience, and, above all, being able to uphold the airline’s reputation with its passengers.

Southwest moved its entire Customer Support & Services department to fully remote status in 2022. This meant that the employees would now be further removed from daily operations in a physical context, making it harder for them to feel appreciated or seen by their coworkers who retain a permanent desk at one of Southwest’s offices.

Photo: Southwest Airlines

To mitigate the potential morale and cultural ellipses the move to a remote position can create, Southwest says of the event that,

“…the ‘Heart 2 Heart Connection’ event is one of the many ways Southwest shares its unique culture of caring with Employees.”

Southwest is no stranger to reaching out to its employees and thanking them in one way or another, with the most recent example stemming from the systems meltdown the airline experienced during the holiday period of 2022. There, bonuses totaling $45M were handed out to staff that helped the airline get through the difficult period as a gesture of gratitude.

Maintaining culture in the aviation industry

Company-wide events such as the Heart 2 Heart Connection at Southwest are nothing new in this industry, as airlines have to work hard to keep their employees happy under increasingly tough conditions, as travel rises back up to 2019 levels.

For instance, in an effort to acknowledge the work their staff does, Delta Air Lines announced a 5% raise for all staff earlier in the year. Furthermore, United Airlines recognized their Denver Hub employees’ work in a newsletter earlier this year. Highlighting how well they perform during difficult travel periods.

All of this work further emphasizes just how important employee appreciation is in keeping the airline industry operating at the very highest standard, benefitting the flying public greatly.