Southwest Airlines Honors Proud Tradition Of Celebrating Black History Month All Year Long

DALLAS, Feb. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) will host an array of activities throughout 2013 to honor the Company's long heritage of serving the African American community and showing its strong dedication to diversity and inclusion.  To watch a video of how Southwest Airlines celebrates Black History all year long, visit the airline's YouTube channel.

"The month of February is a great time for Southwest Airlines to celebrate Black History, but for us, it's not just a month-long celebration—we are proud to show our dedication to the African American community all year long," said Ellen Torbert, Southwest Airlines' Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion. "Through community partnerships with dozens of African American-focused nonprofit organizations, Southwest Airlines champions diversity and inclusion and the causes that matter most to Customers and Employees."

Southwest Airlines proudly gives back to the African American community:

January 21 | Colorado Volunteers of America, Martin Luther King, Jr. Dinner, Denver, Colorado
Southwest Airlines Employees volunteer their time to serve meals to the homeless and senior citizen communities in Denver in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s idea that we are all one family and as a family, we should come together in fellowship and eat from the same table.

February | National Great Blacks in Wax Museum Tour, Select Cities
Southwest Airlines is bringing history to its Employees by featuring wax figures of prominent African Americans who helped shape history.  In partnership with the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, the historical figures will travel to five Southwest Airlines locations.

February 7 - 9 | 27^th Annual Black Engineer of the Year Awards at the STEM Global Competitiveness Conference, Washington, D.C.
Southwest Airlines proudly sponsors this conference to send participants and speakers to the largest gathering of Science, Technology, Engineer, and Mathematics (STEM) professionals and leaders who are committed to increasing the percentage of people from historically under-represented communities in the technology workforce.

March 24 - 27 | National African American Women's Leadership Institute (NAAWLI), Dallas, Texas
Southwest Airlines proudly supports the mission of NAAWLI to develop the leadership skills of African American women through a year-long educational and mentoring program led by successful women in the African American community.

June 5 - 7 | National Urban League Black Executive Exchange Program, Orlando, Florida
Southwest Airlines connects African American students to network with business professionals to prepare them for careers in corporate America.  By providing travel, these professionals have the opportunity to share learning and experience across generations, cultivate new leaders, and inspire achievements beyond the present with the youth who attend.

July | NAACP Youth Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological & Scientific Olympics Program, Baltimore, Maryland
Southwest Airlines supports students who compete in a year-long achievement program designed to recruit, stimulate, and encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African American high school students.

August | Southwest Airlines' 4^th Annual Award-Winning Diversity Summit, Dallas, Texas
Southwest Airlines will bring together Executives from North Texas Fortune 500 companies during its fourth annual award-winning Diversity Summit to focus on diversity and inclusion initiatives, foster new opportunities, and explore best practices.

October | Diversity Leadership Alliance Conference, Phoenix, Arizona
Southwest Airlines supports the mission of the Diversity Leadership Alliance Conference to give Human Resources professionals, diversity officers, community and business leaders, students, and teachers from the Phoenix community to learn about diversity and inclusion, managing and mentoring diverse workforces, and implementing effective strategies.

November | Continuing the Legacy in Aviation, Dallas, Texas
Southwest Airlines will host its sixth annual "Continuing the Legacy in Aviation" program where students and their chaperones tour a number of Southwest Airlines facilities where students can learn about the airline's operation. The students also have the opportunity to interact with and learn from the amazing experiences of the National Tuskegee Airmen.

Since Southwest Airlines' beginnings more than 41 years ago, the LUV airline has always approached business differently—instituting the ten-minute turn, democratizing the skies with affordable air travel, delivering Legendary Customer Service—the list goes on and on. One thing that has remained constant since Southwest Airlines took to the skies four decades ago is doing the right thing, and it always comes from the heart.  To learn more about how Southwest Airlines gives back to the African American community, visit www.southwest.com/blackhistory.

ABOUT SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CO.

In its 42^nd year of service, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other carriers with exemplary Customer Service delivered by nearly 46,000 Employees to more than 100 million Customers annually.  Southwest is the nation's largest carrier in terms of originating passengers boarded, and including wholly-owned subsidiary, AirTran Airways, operates the largest fleet of Boeing aircraft in the world to serve 97 destinations in 41 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and six near-international countries. Southwest is one of the most honored airlines in the world, known for its triple bottom line thinking that takes into account the carrier's performance and productivity, the importance of the People who work there and the communities it serves, and its commitment to efficiency and the Planet.  The 2011 Southwest Airlines One Report™ can be found at southwest.com/citizenship.

www.southwest.com

SOURCE Southwest Airlines