{"id":5980,"date":"2019-01-04T03:00:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T03:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/herb-kelleher-father-of-low-cost-airline-travel-dies-at-87\/"},"modified":"2019-01-04T03:00:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T03:00:43","slug":"herb-kelleher-father-of-low-cost-airline-travel-dies-at-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/herb-kelleher-father-of-low-cost-airline-travel-dies-at-87\/","title":{"rendered":"Herb Kelleher: Father of low-cost airline travel dies at 87"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Herb Kelleher in 2004\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/518B\/production\/_105057802_gettyimages-50821176.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Herb Kelleher, who co-founded low-cost US carrier Southwest Airlines, has died aged 87, the company says.<\/p>\n<p>The company described him as &#8220;a pioneer, a maverick and an innovator&#8221; who disrupted the airline industry &#8220;by making flying both fun and affordable&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He is survived by his wife Joan and three of their four children.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 1967, his airline initially aimed to provide cheap flights between the Texas cities of Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.<\/p>\n<p>However Mr Kelleher, who had trained as a lawyer, was forced to fight a legal battle after competitor airlines fought to prevent his planes from operating.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-44795639\" class=\"story-body__link\">Is stopping the boom the key to supersonic air travel?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Supreme Court of Texas eventually ruled in his favour and the airline began service in 1971.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I knew nothing about airlines, which I think made me eminently qualified to start one,&#8221; Kelleher told National Public Radio in 2016,  &#8220;because what we tried to do at Southwest was get away from the traditional way that airlines had done business.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">AFP<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Southwest offered cheap tickets in single-class cabins without reserved seats &#8211; tactics that became common in the airline industry several decades later.<\/p>\n<p>The airline&#8217;s business model, which also included shortened turnaround times at airports, cabin crew collecting rubbish, and high aircraft utilisation, has since been copied by other low-cost carriers including Ryanair of the Irish Republic and Easyjet of the UK. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/southwest-airlines-founder-herb-kelleher-has-died-2019-1?r=UK&amp;IR=T\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">Since its early days, Southwest has expanded to become the world&#8217;s largest low-cost airline<\/a> with more than 700 Boeing 737 jets making 4,000 flights a day, Business Insider reported.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Herb&#8217;s passion, zest for life, and insatiable investment in relationships made lasting and immeasurable impressions on all who knew him,&#8221; Southwest said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Many in the aviation industry have been paying tribute.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-46755080\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Herb Kelleher, who co-founded low-cost US carrier Southwest Airlines, has died aged 87, the company says. The company described him as &#8220;a pioneer, a maverick and an innovator&#8221; who disrupted the airline industry &#8220;by making flying both fun and affordable&#8221;. He is survived by his wife Joan and three of their &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}