A behind-the-scenes take a look at Southwest’s Dallas headquarters

An airport on the bottom

When airport brokers start their careers with Southwest, they descend on the airline’s Dallas headquarters for a coaching course. Throughout that point, the up-and-coming brokers spend time within the classroom studying concerning the airline’s tradition and familiarizing themselves with their new tasks.

Earlier than they graduate, they should put their studying into follow. Whereas they may theoretically head to close by Dallas Love Subject (DAL), which is situated only a stone’s throw away, Southwest has a mock-up of a check-in foyer on-site.

Right here, check-in brokers study extra about the way to function the kiosks, weigh checked luggage and use the airline’s reservations programs.

Gate brokers are additionally skilled on campus, and there is a precise reproduction of a gate space on the second flooring of the coaching constructing. In case you shut your eyes, you may think your self in an airport — the seats and the boarding stanchions are precisely the identical as those you’d discover at a Southwest gate.

There’s even a functioning PA system to assist workers discover ways to modulate their voices when welcoming the A, B and C boarding teams.

Studying inflight service

Flight attendants additionally spend time at Southwest’s headquarters earlier than they earn their wings.

They start their coaching within the classroom with shows detailing all of the ins and outs of the Boeing 737. They will find out about offering environment friendly and customized service, dealing with safety points and evacuating a airplane throughout an emergency.

After weeks behind a desk, the flight attendants follow inflight service in a specifically configured Boeing 737 cabin expertise coach.

That is primarily a cross-section of an airplane with the home windows eliminated for straightforward viewing from the surface. There are giant TVs hanging above the airplane that present a livestream of what is taking place inside for the observers to see.

The cabin itself comes from a retired Southwest jet, and it nonetheless options the unique seats and overhead bins.

This coach is the proper manner for flight attendants to get some hands-on expertise with out taking a totally functioning airplane out of service.

In case of emergency

Along with service supply, flight attendants must discover ways to deal with inflight emergencies, and Southwest has an space at its headquarters devoted to only that.

This emergency preparedness heart is outfitted with one other cross-section of a airplane, however this one can simulate many forms of inflight emergencies starting from fires to water landings to smoke within the cabin.

There’s even a slide linked to this airplane, which helps flight attendants follow evacuating the plane.

You may discover loads of different emergency tools right here, together with life rafts, exit door trainers and life vests.

Pilot coaching

Pilots have a rigorous coaching schedule. They not solely must find out about how a airplane operates, however additionally they must commonly spend time in plane simulators studying the way to fly in all situations, together with throughout emergencies.

Whereas simulators price hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, Southwest has invested in a whopping 26 of them for its all-Boeing 737 fleet.

These machines are precise replicas of an actual 737 cockpit, and almost each sort of emergency or climate scenario might be simulated throughout coaching.

Southwest operates these simulators across the clock starting at round 6 a.m. every day and going till 3 a.m. in some circumstances.

Controlling the airline

With greater than 4,000 each day flights, Southwest is likely one of the largest U.S. airways.

Whereas it takes tens of 1000’s of workers to run the operation, maybe none are as vital because the 1,000 who oversee your complete community.

These workers sit within the NOC, or community operations management heart, which is basically the central nervous system for your complete airline. Right here, flights are dispatched and tracked, climate programs are monitored, technical malfunctions are addressed and extra. The airline even has a minimal of two meteorologists working at any time to forecast climate throughout the community.

This constructing on Southwest’s campus is so vital that its partitions are thick sufficient to face up to an F3 twister on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. In different phrases, it is constructed to face up to winds blowing as much as 206 mph.

Quite a lot of division leaders sit within the NOC, starting from the chief pilot to the chief flight attendant to the pinnacle of floor operations and the chief of technical operations. These key stakeholders meet thrice a day — at 8:30 a.m., 3:15 p.m. and eight p.m. — within the so-called scenario room to debate the state of the operation, with a deal with the airline’s 15 largest airports.

When issues are working easily, these conferences can take only a few minutes, however when there are climate programs throughout the nation or air site visitors management delays in key hubs, they could run extra time.

Hopefully, the following time you fly with Southwest, it will be on a day when issues are working easily within the NOC. If they’re, there is a good likelihood that your flight will function on time.