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Rollin King on a demo flight for Southwest Airlines in 1968. Credit Southwest Airlines
Rollin W. King, a co-founder of Southwest Airlines, the low-cost carrier that helped to change the way Americans travel, died Thursday in Dallas. He was 83. The cause was complications from a stroke he had a year ago, his son Edward King of Dallas said.
An avid pilot who had a business degree from Harvard, Mr. King sketched out a plan to create Southwest in 1967. The idea was to create an airline that was less expensive and more fun to fly.
“He really had a feeling there was a better way to go about air travel,†his son said.
Back when Mr. King and his collaborator, Herbert D. Kelleher, started the company with just a few planes, Southwest faced stiff opposition from larger, established carriers, whose prices made frequent air travel the near-exclusive domain of the wealthy.
The company started flying in 1971, but only in Texas at first. Southwest is now one of the world’s largest airlines with more than 100 million passengers annually and $17.7 billion in revenue last year.
“His idea to create a low-cost, low-fare, better service quality airline in Texas subsequently proved to be an empirical role model for not only the U.S. as a whole but, ultimately, for all of the world’s inhabited continents,†said Mr. Kelleher, Southwest’s chairman emeritus.
Photo
Rollin King Credit Southwest Airlines
Southwest’s chief executive, Gary C. Kelly, credited Mr. King for helping to start the company’s effort to “democratize the skies.â€
After helping Mr. Kelleher get the airline off the ground, Mr. King liked to pitch in as a pilot on some of the company’s routes, his son said. Mr. King served on the company’s board of directors through 2005, a Southwest spokeswoman said.
Born in Cleveland on April 10, 1931, Mr. King graduated from Case Western Reserve University and Harvard Business School. After earning his business degree, he moved to San Antonio, took a job as an investment banker and operated a charter airline.
Among his survivors are another son, Rollin Jr., and a sister, Betty.
The concept for Southwest came to Mr. King when he noticed that businessmen in Texas were willing to charter planes instead of paying the high fares of the domestic airlines.
At the time that Mr. King first proposed the idea to Mr. Kelleher over drinks, the federal government regulated the fares, schedules and routes of interstate airlines, and the mandated prices were high.
Competitors like Texas International Airlines, Braniff International Airways and Continental Airlines waged a protracted legal battle before Southwest could make its first flight. By not flying across state borders, Southwest was able to get around prices set by the Civil Aeronautics Board.
To compete in those early years, Southwest gave out free bottles of liquor to passengers who bought full-fare tickets. The early uniforms of the Southwest female flight attendants also stood out — orange shorts, known as “hot pants,†with high white shoes.
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