Our Mission Statement

The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.

At Southwest Airlines, our Mission Statement has always governed the way we conduct our business. It highlights our desire to serve our Customers and gives us direction when we have to make service-related decisions. It is another way of saying "we always try to do the right thing!" Our Mission Statement has also led the way to the airline industry’s best cumulative consumer satisfaction record, according to statistics accumulated and published by the U.S. Department of Transportation. That is why we are sharing it with you.

In keeping with the spirit and intent of our Mission Statement, and as evidence of our wish to continually meet the expectations of our valued Customers, Southwest wants you to have a basic understanding of how we operate. We want you to have confidence in our airline and its Employees, and we want you to be aware that there are, or may be, circumstances that can have an impact on your travel plans, purchase decisions, or your overall expectations.

Foremost, we want you to know that it is never our wish to inconvenience our valued Customers. You are the very purpose of our business, and it is a privilege to serve your air travel needs. It is our ongoing desire to provide safe, affordable, reliable, timely, courteous, and efficient air transportation and baggage handling service on every flight we operate, just as it is our wish to produce a fair return on our Shareholders’ investments.

The Employees of Southwest Airlines understand our mission, and we are happy to share it, and the following information, with you, our valued Customer. We hope this information will clarify many of the most commonly questioned terms and conditions of our Contract of Carriage and provide you with insight into some of our policies and procedures. We also offer you this information in recognition of the great importance that we place on your business and your confidence. For a complete copy of our Contract of Carriage, please write to:

Vice President, Customer Relations
P.O. Box 36647
Dallas, Texas 75235-1647

View the Southwest Airlines Customer Service Commitment Online in Adobe Acrobat*

*You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader version 3.0 or higher to read the PDF file. You can download the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader free of charge from the Adobe web site.

Table of Contents

Again, the mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. And, the information in this document is intended to show you that, regardless of the circumstances that may arise during your flight, we have already thought about your safety, your wellbeing, your pocketbook, and your expectations. You see, we are not only here to get you from point "A" to point "B," we are here to help when things aren’t going quite right for you or for us.

The information in this document is also intended to answer some of the most common questions and concerns about air travel on Southwest Airlines, and to explain, in plain language, many of the terms and conditions of our Contract of Carriage. It is not intended to be all encompassing, or to override any of the binding elements of the contract we enter into when you purchase your Southwest Airlines ticket. We simply want you to have the information you need to be a well-informed, frequent, and satisfied Southwest Airlines Customer.

If you have a question, concern, complaint, or compliment about our transportation service, and if our Reservations Sales Agents cannot provide the assistance you need, please write to the address below. We will get an answer to you within 60 days.

Vice President, Customer Relations
Southwest Airlines Co.
P.O. Box 36647
Dallas, Texas 75235-1647

            Colleen C. Barrett, our Executive Vice President-Customers, bears the ultimate responsibility for our compliance with this Customer Service Commitment.