HOUSTON — Southwest Airlines takes its biggest leap yet in international service this week when it adds daily flights to Mexico, Belize and Costa Rica from its new $146 million international terminal at William P. Hobby Airport.
“This is the year of Houston,” CEO Gary Kelly said during a media preview of the five-gate terminal Thursday.
He said Houston, one of Southwest’s three original cities and a geographic no-brainer as an international hub, will be the airline’s focus for “quite some time.”
“This will be a priority for us,” Kelly said.
Executives hinted that a few new cities south of the border could be added next year from Houston but were mum beyond that.
…… New employee uniforms: Next year, Southwest will debut its first new employee uniforms in 20 years. Eighty percent of the workforce wears a uniform, so it’s a big project. Employees have led the $23 million undertaking. Frequent travelers may already have gotten a glimpse of the brighter uniforms, designed to match the airline’s paint scheme unveiled last year, as some employees are wearing them on a test basis. ….
