Herb Kelleher was the co-founder and then the CEO of Southwest Airlines for 20 years, ending in 2001 — although he stayed on as chairman until 2007. While that was a while ago now, it’s when Southwest’s DNA as a company really was formed.

There's a growing volume of online chatter about the next big airline merger that's likely to be proposed, and much of it involves Southwest Airlines.

Southwest Airlines plans to cut 1,750 jobs or 15 percent of its corporate workforce, in the US carrier's first company-wide layoffs in its 54-year history. The Dallas-based airline said Monday that the job cuts would be focused almost entirely on “corporate overhead and leadership positions,