Airbubba
SW was not a major airline in 1978. It was a small regional carrier with a tiny fleet and very low costs.
Today it has become a high cost operation that could face Chapter 11 like all the other over bloated super large carriers have .
Remember that a lot of SW past success was from fuel hedges, flying into secondary airports, and having competitors will high costs. All these advantages are now gone. Just check out the stock price (LUV) which is telling in itself.
The "times they are a changing".