Morris Air was a low-fare
airline in the
westernUnited States, based in
Salt Lake City, Utah. It began scheduled operations in 1992,[2][3][4] and was sold to
Southwest Airlines in December 1993 for over $120 million in stock.[1][5][6][7][8] The airline officially became part of Southwest in the autumn of 1994.[9][10] Morris Air was the first airline in the world to invent e-ticket (ticketless) travel based on the suggestion of Stuart Thatcher, an employee at the time. Although Southwest Airlines is often credited with offering the first e-ticketing system, it was in fact created and implemented by Morris Air and later integrated into Southwest Airlines after it purchased Morris Air.[11]
History
The airline began charter operations as Morris Air Service in 1984.[3][12] It was launched by Utah businesswoman June Morris, who also founded Morris Travel in 1970,[13][14][15][16][17] and
David Neeleman who also co-founded
WestJet and
JetBlue.[18] Neeleman worked with Southwest for a short period and when his non-compete agreement expired, he founded
JetBlue Airways.[19] June Morris sat on the board of directors of Southwest Airlines until she retired at the annual shareholders' meeting on May 17, 2006.[20]
Morris obtained its own FAR 121 operating certificate in December 1992 and then began operating as its own carrier.[3]
The airline was based at
Salt Lake City International Airport where it operated a hub[23] and flew many routes primarily in the western U.S. using
Boeing 737-300 aircraft. In late 1993, it operated over 1,000 flights per week with a fleet of 21 planes.[12]
Destinations
The following destination information is taken from Morris Air route maps with the airline not serving all of these airports at the same time.[24]