The chairman was delighted to see Bill Morton and Courtney Smith of Southwest Airlines and Peter de Boer of KLM attend the session and provide excellent topics for conversation. Participation by airlines dropped precipitously after September 11, 2001, so we are delighted to see more airlines represented with each passing year. Bill introduced Courtney Smith, who is now assisting him with weight issues at Southwest. Bill mentioned he is training her to assume his position upon retirement. We look forward to seeing her at future conferences. Mr. Morton spent some time discussing his attempts to quantify weight growth for the fleet over time. In particular, he mentioned that he has collected years of data on Southwest's fleet of over 300 737-700's (the first delivery was in 1998). He stated that he has observed approximately +2000 Ib (907 kg) average growth in airplane weight. This is attributed to both manufacturing changes as well as changes to Southwest's airplane configurations.
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