Gadling

If you were following along the tweetfeed and some of the events late last week, you may have learned that I spent a little bit of time down at Southwest Airlines‘ HQ in Dallas for Halloween. Each year the airline has an internal competition among the departments to decorate their sections, arrange skits and try to outdo each other for the famed glory and bragging rights of the best performance.

This year, I came down with The Cranky Flier and EGW from Jaunted to help in judging the competition and to witness the madness first hand. And madness it was.

To begin with, Southwest’s CEO, Gary Kelly takes the holiday pretty seriously (he’s about the complete opposite from me.) A few years back he dressed up as Gene Simmons from Kiss. Last year he was a chick. And his enthusiasm trickles down into the soul of the entire company. EVERYONE gets fired up for this day.
When I showed up at HQ just after seven, I briefly had breakfast with my colleagues and was introduced to Gary, who this year was dressed up as Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. Yes, that’s him pictured above; here’s a picture of him in real life. Two of his closest colleagues were dressed up as other band members. Here they are practicing their moves:

After introductions and pictures, we were quickly ushered outside to golf carts that took us over to the MX hangar where aircraft are refurbished and fixed. I could have spent all day here but instead we were led through to a surprisingly impressive haunted house, complete with goons jumping out at you and fake blood.

With everyone safe and sound, much of the rest of the day involved visiting different departments and participating in assorted skits and activities that they had prepared. Some, involving dozens of employees coordinated into singing and dancing productions MUST have been professionally choreographed, begging the question of how much time and cash went into the production (and how much these bragging rights are really worth.) Others, like the Indiana Jones reenactment looked like they took weeks of construction and planning.

In the end, it was that sort of effort that ended up getting the judge’s vote for best performance. Both the Indiana Jones reenactment and a Southwest Spin on Mama Mia titled “SWAMama Mia” took home prizes for best performance.

As for the judges, we enjoyed ten seconds of fame at the end of the day when we were introduced to the employees up on stage. And I’m proud to say that I’m the only blogger that carried a beer up with him.

Until next year, friends at Southwest. I probably need that long to recover.