Hello everyone.

It’s Thursday and I’m in Dallas working on this week’s issue of PBB.

Yesterday I spent most of the day at Southwest Airlines — as part of their media day activities. I wish I could say there was some interesting news to report from this year’s program, but there really wasn’t.

About the most interesting thing to report is that this year they combined the analyst/institutional investor day with media day, which provided for some interesting conversations at lunch.

Overheard at our table:

Reporter: And what investment firm are you with?

Investor: Blah Blah and Sons. You’ve never heard of us.

Reporter: Oh. Are you based in New York?

Investor: Yes, but we never talk to the press. We make it a point to stay “under the radar.” We don’t want any publicity.

Reporter: Oh.

End of conversation.

Unfortunately we really had little time just to “socialize” with folks who were there. I saw Gary Chase, I saw Betsy Snyder, I saw Jamie Baker, I saw Mike Linenberg, I saw Kevin Crissey, all the rest of the analyst community, not to mention all the media folks who were also there. But there was little time to talk to anyone. I had my hands full with my pizza and my ice tea looking for a place to sit at lunch when I saw Betsy, for example. Never got a chance to track her down before we were all shepherded into the next session with Southwest CEO Gary Kelly.

Shame. Would have been nice if we could have had more schmooze time. Both with Southwest execs and with the investor/analyst folks, since they were there. That type of informal contact, whether it be in the form of a cocktail party, or dinner, is a huge reason these types of events are usually worth attending.