Southwest Airlines: Outstanding Employees Surprised with $10,000!

Pennies from Heaven
On a date associated with gags and practical jokes, 21 Southwest Airlines Employees are counting quite a few extra pennies this April 1st -- a million of them!

Even Ed McMahon might tip his hat to our prize patrollers who have been reaching across the Southwest system to bring sky-high joy to 21 Southwest Employees as the Grand Finale to our year-long incentive contest, Operation: Kick Tail (OKT).

As you'll see, each winner got the news in a very surprising way before that $10,000 deposit hit their bank accounts.

The winners were drawn randomly from a pile of more than 180,000 "Kick Tail-A-Grams," commendations awarded by their fellow Employees for Positively Outrageous Customer Service and, simply, Living the Southwest Way. In all, more than 200 Southwest Warriors received various prizes as a part of OKT after the 35,000 Employees of Southwest worked together to meet all our year-end performance goals for 2008.

Times are tough all around, but we're as proud of the fact that we're taking care of our Employees as we are proud of their accomplishments of enduring strength. (Oh, we also took care of Uncle Sam, too. None of our winners is having to spend their prize money on taxes!)