Southwest Passage
By Muse, Lamar '41

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Southwest Passage:
The Inside Story of Southwest Airlines' Formative Years

When Southwest Airlines made its inaugural flight on June 18, 1971, experts predicted that the company wouldn't last more than ninety days. Some thirty-two years later, Southwest is the beleaguered airline industry's only profitable major company.

Money magazine has named Southwest Airlines' common stock the premier investment of the last thirty years, with the runner-up, Wal-Mart, only a distant second.

Now Southwest's founding president and CEO (1970-78), Lamar Muse, offers a definitive account of the airline's scrappy beginning. The principles and practices that assured the company's success were, largely, Muse's own. Those same winning strategies continue to sustain the company through the market's ups and downs.

During his school days in Palestine, Texas, Muse was known by the nickname "Ug," short for "ugly." He never earned a college degree. But with a brilliant and broad understanding of complex market forces, he bypassed "business as usual" to launch Southwest Airlines.

Lamar Muse established Southwest using clear, practical, timeless solutions. Likewise, in Southwest Passage, he delivers plain facts and informed opinions that replace convoluted outsider accounts of the company's history. For anyone wondering how the air industry can renew itself, how Southwest achieved its dominance, or how business really works, this unique story has the answers.

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