United v. Southwest Whos the home team?
Southwest and United Airlines each dispatched a team to visit the Chronicle editorial board this week to make a pitch for their side in the battle over Hobby. Southwest seeks city approval to start international flights out of Hobby. United, based at Bush Intercontinental, opposes it.
There was some snickering over the fact that neither group of executives achieved an on-time arrival for its appointed 2 p.m. meeting (Southwest Tuesday, United Wednesday). Of course, the visitors may have been in the building but detained by the Chronicles version of TSA.
The two companies had very different messages, of course, but they had the same intro: Were the home team.
Uniteds coterie included Nene Foxhall, executive vice president of communications and government affairs. She had been with Houston-based Continental before its merger with United (and long before that, a Chronicle political editor).
We also want to remind you about the great things Continental before and United now have built with the city of Houston at Intercontinental and how important it is that that be maintained, Foxhall started out, referring to a billion dollars of investment at Bush since the mid-1990s and another $700 million in the works.
The fact is we employ about 17,000 people now. Thats almost the same as before we merged. Were the number two private employer in the city, she said. The Chronicles most recent listing ranks United fifth.
She continued:
I know there are a lot of hard feelings about the headquarters move, Foxhall acknowledged, but I just want to remind you how important Houston is to us.
Southwest had CEO Gary Kelly do much of the talking.
Kelly also told the board:
This isnt a bake-off. Were only talking to the city of Houston, Kelly said.
Southwest and United Airlines each dispatched a team to visit the Chronicle editorial board this week to make a pitch for their side in the battle over Hobby. Southwest seeks city approval to start international flights out of Hobby. United, based at Bush Intercontinental, opposes it.
There was some snickering over the fact that neither group of executives achieved an on-time arrival for its appointed 2 p.m. meeting (Southwest Tuesday, United Wednesday). Of course, the visitors may have been in the building but detained by the Chronicles version of TSA.
The two companies had very different messages, of course, but they had the same intro: Were the home team.
Uniteds coterie included Nene Foxhall, executive vice president of communications and government affairs. She had been with Houston-based Continental before its merger with United (and long before that, a Chronicle political editor).
We also want to remind you about the great things Continental before and United now have built with the city of Houston at Intercontinental and how important it is that that be maintained, Foxhall started out, referring to a billion dollars of investment at Bush since the mid-1990s and another $700 million in the works.
The fact is we employ about 17,000 people now. Thats almost the same as before we merged. Were the number two private employer in the city, she said. The Chronicles most recent listing ranks United fifth.
She continued:
We have added more flights, more destinations at this hub than at any hub in our system (since the merger). Houston is a centerpiece for our strategy in this new airline. I still live here. (CEO) Jeff Smisek still lives here. His wife teaches at Rice.
And then this:
You still see Uniteds banner on the halls of every arts organization in this city. You see our logo on the T-shirts of organizations like the Texas Southern University debate team when theyre in Europe, where weve flown them every year for the last 16 years and intend to keep flying them.
Of course, the elephant in the room during this monologue was the approximately 1,500 formerly Continental corporate jobs that got moved from Houston to Chicago as a result of the merger.
I know there are a lot of hard feelings about the headquarters move, Foxhall acknowledged, but I just want to remind you how important Houston is to us.
Southwest had CEO Gary Kelly do much of the talking.
Houston is one of our original service points and we like to feel that were a hometown airline here, and certainly very, very devoted to the city and community. Houstons been good for us, and hopefully, in turn, weve been good for Houston.
And:
We have grown from very modest beginnings as you all know. When we launched service in 1971 to Houston we had three airplanes in three cities and that was it. We started out as a Texas corporation. We are still a Texas corporation. Im sure we are the largest company that is incorporated in the state of Texas.
Ron Ricks, Southwests executive vice president and chief legal and regulatory officer, reminded the editorial board, Southwest Airlines reopened Hobby after it shut down when Bush was built. We reopened it and we built the new airport for the city of Houston at no cost to city taxpayers&
Kelly also told the board:
Houston is our kind of city, number one, but we know that youre interested in growth, we know that you are all about competition and as we think about how we want to grow internationally, Houston is a place that we want to be.
While the airlines could investigate gateways to the south through Austin, St. Louis or New Orleans, Kelly said, its not.
This isnt a bake-off. Were only talking to the city of Houston, Kelly said.
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