I was driving East on 40 yesterday at about 4:30 pm just past Macarthur. And I swear I saw Shamu coming in for a landing at the airport. As I stared it down I thought I saw the Southwest logo on the tail. A google search revealed that I am not crazy...

http://www.air-and-space.com/199411%20PHX/07%20737-3H4%20Southwest%20Shamu%20approach%20l.jpg

Pretty nifty. :)

Thats one of the great things about Southwest. They apparently arent burdened by a fear of change. Now if they would just get some more direct flights to the east coast...........

When my kids were younger and I waited in the carpool line to pick them up from school I regularly saw Shamu flying into OKC. If I remember correctly, it was always at the same time on the same day of the week. It is pretty cool looking.

Southwest has several other planes with interesting paint schemes, including 3 with the the Shamu paint. Evidently, they are the official airline of SeaWorld.

Here is the link to photos of their other interestingly painted planes: Southwest Airlines - Photo Gallery (http://www.southwest.com/about_swa/photos.html)

And my personal favorite:

http://www.southwest.com/images/photo_gallery/lonestar1.jpg

Although Shamu is a close second:
http://www.southwest.com/images/photo_gallery/shamu1.jpg

The NBA one is/was pretty sweet.

And we need a 'Oklahoma One' plane...

I've got someone's ear over at Southwest. He's still a newbie employee, but maybe he can bend the right ear and we can eventually have our Oklahoma One. At least he's administration, so it's a step in the right direction.

Cruising wikipedia, I happened on a surprising fact

As of Dec 2007, based on number of passengers carried,
Southwest is the largest airline in the world....

^Yeah, Southwest has several planes painted in special colour schemes, including Nevada One, Arizona One, New Mexico One, etc. There is also a Silver One. And yep, WN carried the most passengers last year of any airline. I've photographed one of its Shamu Panes and Arizona One I believe in my travels. And for those who haven't flown Southwest, it's definitely one the best airlines out there.

Shamu One has been through OKC at least as far back as 1991 as I can recall flying to STL on it at least once.

Southwest will be adding Tinker Bell One to their fleet. "Powered by Pixie Dust," the Tinker Bell One will be celebrating the release of Disney's brand new Tinker Bell movie. Flying whales and pixie fairies... Southwest is definitely a unique airline.

:)