Losing another piece of the soul
I was A or A+ for five years, although I had not been on WN for several months. What surprised me this past week was the new design for the cocktail napkins: on one side, "Here's to you" is written along the top and "Southwest" and the heart logo along the bottom, with white space in between, while the other side says "Yes, we fly there. 5 countries, 90 destinations, and counting." Apparently, these napkins went into use some time after announcing the new livery in September.
So what, you ask? As many of you know, legend has it that the original WN business plan, the Texas triangle, was drawn up on a cocktail napkin nearly 50 years ago. (I say legend because WN co-founder Rollin King later said the napkin never existed, but why ruin a good story.) Since then, a map of cities served has always been printed on the napkins.
I realize that squeezing in routes south of the border is graphically more difficult, but hardly insurmountable. Dropping the map is just another sign that the fun-loving, maverick, warrior-spirit persona has passed into history and WN is now just another legacy airline.