Southwest Airlines
Location: Dallas
CEO: Gary Kelly
Revenues: $9.0 billion
What they do: Corrals discount travelers in and out of 737s for a reasonable fee.
Disruptive qualities: Southwest bucks every industry trend and provides better value by filling fights, using just one type of aircraft for its limited and highly targeted hops, and restricting ticket purchases to its own Web site.
The tech that makes them tick: Southwest pioneered ticketless travel in the ?90s and was way ahead of the curve in self-service kiosks. The airline is now applying the same singular focus that works with its 737 fleet to its enterprise software, deploying a single data architecture across the enterprise.
Who they are disrupting: The company causes grief to every airline with more than a dozen planes whose name isn?t Jet Blue.
