In a move that would tend to support the idea that Southwest Airlines sees growth slowing and costs continuing to escalate, the airline is making a buyout offer to about 8700 employees. That number represents about 25% of the airline’s total workforce.

The workers have until Aug. 10 to accept the offers, which began showing up in their mailboxes Monday, said Brandy King, a Southwest spokeswoman today. She said the company didn’t have a target number of job or cost reductions it hoped to achieve.

Southwest said it is offering $25,000 in cash plus health and dental benefits to 8,700 flight attendants, baggage handlers, customer service agents and supervisors, reservations sales agents and their bosses, and freight agents who handle cargo shipments and other employees.

The offer wasn’t extended to pilots and mechanics.

While this is not the first time the airline has offered a buy-out option to employees, it is certainly the largest effort on the part of the airline — and points to how serious the airline takes the issue of mounting costs.

I have mixed feelings on this one. Clearly some of the airline’s most experienced workers are the ones being targeted with this effort — as it is clearly aimed at those employees at the top of the pay scales. And that makes me kind of sad, frankly. Don’t you want your most experienced employees on the front line and working with employees?

But, if the process has  been targeted well — it might not  be such a bad idea.

Remember — Southwest has never laid any employees off from their position.

And over the last several years, the question of the company continuing to carry perhaps too much “internal padding” has cropped up from time to time.

As they say, the devil is in the details. Meanwhile, the news does bring a mixed reaction.

Ticker: (NYSE:LUV)