No matter how strong the spirit ,it is the accountants who decide the fate of any company, to suggest anything else is romantic nonsense. Take off the rose tinted spectacles and come into the real world. An " extraordinary business model" indeed when the employees finance the financial shortfalls.
I have seen this touchy-feely back slapping mentality before in a Belgian company which at the time was cursed with Amarican management ( unfortunately not of the quality of Southwest). All this "camaraderie" was just a smoke screen to get everyone "on-side" so that people would be more mallable. Don't believe for an instant that those in contol of the budget, share your sentamentalism for the company, they would cut you dead , without a cent if they had to,either to save the company or their own asses. . . do you really believe otherwise ? if so you have a lot of learning left to do in life & some of it ain't pretty.
The camaraderie does indeed ( at least for the contributors here , but perhaps not all the employees ? ) seems real enough, but I doubt if the characters in charge at the top are significantly different to anywhere else.
You can classify that as cynicism or realism as you wish.
If I keep repeating myself Peter Paul it is because you and several others seem to be completely unable to understand that I don't wish you anything but the best.
As always I also suggest you keep your eyes open and don't confuse helping someone with being manipulated. Things you agree to do "exceptionally" have an unfortunate habit of becoming "accepted practice" and you will then be accused (like the RYR pilots frequently are) of helping to set the bar lower for what are generally accepted norms.