Longtime Southwest Airlines CEO will step down next year

DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines said Wednesday that longtime CEO Gary Kelly will step down in February and be succeeded by another veteran at the nation's fourth-largest airline.

The new CEO will be Robert Jordan, the executive vice president of corporate services. Southwest said Kelly, 66, plans to remain executive chairman at least through 2026.

Change at the top comes as Southwest and other airlines are starting to recover from the pandemic. Southwest is heavily geared to vacationers flying within the U.S. or to nearby countries, and it has navigated the downturn better than most. Thanks to federal pandemic relief, it turned a small profit in the first quarter of this year, and it has added many new leisure-travel destinations.

Jordan said in an interview that his goals are to restore Southwest’s profitability to “the levels we would like and expect,” repair the balance sheet – Southwest took on debt to survive the pandemic – and visit employees every week. He gave a stay-the-course outlook — “We've got a wonderful strategy” — and declined to list any major changes on his agenda.

The new CEO will take over an airline with a history of technology outages that have aggravated customers. Two separate issues last week led to thousands of flight delays and hundreds of cancellations. Jordan said the technology problems “were not because of a lack of investment,” and that the airline’s technology department works to prevent them.

Jordan, 60, was a programmer and financial analyst for computer maker Hewlett-Packard before joining Southwest in 1988. He held jobs in accounting and overseeing technology. However, he has taken on a larger strategic role at Southwest in recent years, including running AirTran Airways after Southwest bought the rival low-cost carrier in 2011...