The highlight of the AAAE convention last week was being able to interview Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, who was one of the keynote speakers. When I asked Southwest about doing this a few months ago, I figured that it was a long shot and wasn’t too likely. But, it all came together! Many thanks to Paula Berg and Chris Mainz over at Southwest for helping to arrange the interview, and of course Gary for allowing me to sit down with him. I was really impressed that I was able to do this. I’m just an eighteen-year-old blogger after all!
Fortunately, I got to the hotel in plenty of time, and soon Chris met me in the lobby. Once Gary came down, I was pretty nervous – it’s not like I’ve been able to meet one-on-one with a Fortune 500 CEO before. I was excited as well, of course. I’ll be honest, it was pretty cool to shake his hand. I was impressed as well that he told me he would object if I didn’t call him by his first name.
I think that the interview went pretty well. The only snag was that I completely blanked out at the end of the interview and forgot to ask for a picture with Gary. Luckily, I was able to arrange meeting with him again in the lobby after his speech, and I was able to get it. Thanks, Gary for being so accommodating!
But enough of my rambling. You can click here to listen to the interview. (If you’re having trouble playing it in your browser, it might be a good idea to right click on the link and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” and download the MP3 to listen to it.)
Great job Dan! I just emailed Cary and told her to watch her back.
Thanks for the interview! Southwest Airlines is the best!
Congratulations and great job Dan!
Dan, great job and thanks for bringing the voice of a great CEO to the masses. I look forward to spending more time in the boardingarea.com.
Dan, you’re going places! Great job on this one =)
Good job Dan! The questions you asked were great; it really gave eveyone some insight as to what Gary thinks of the industry. Thank you!