 Shares of Southwest Airlines rising over 25% so far this year. Let's check in with Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines, for a look at what to expect from the airline in 2018. And Gary, I know you just started flying Boeing's new 737 MAX jets in October. Talk about what you saw in this plane and what passengers will notice. Sure Scott, great to be with you. Well, we're very excited. It's definitely the future for Southwest Airlines. It's the same seating configuration as what we have in the 737-800, but it brings all new engine technology. The engines are 15% more fuel efficient, which gives us a longer range for flying the airplane. But I think in terms of the customer experience, it's 40% quieter than the engines on the Dash 800. So it's a very nice ride. We have enhanced lighting and audio configuration on the airplane as well. So we're just getting rave reviews from our customers. And you mentioned the fuel efficiency of the 737 MAX. You know, oil prices have been on the upswing. They're still obviously much lower than they were a few years ago. Will consumers notice an increase in fares because of rising oil prices? Well, you know, we're working hard at Southwest to be the low fare leader for America and doing everything we can to keep our fares low. The fares are actually down over the last several years. So I can't give you any real insight as to what fares might be next year other than to say that we're going to be working hard to keep fares low. And Gary, you don't charge baggage fees. You don't charge change fees. Yet your stock has outperformed American Airlines, United and Delta Airlines so far this year. How do you do it? How do you get by without some of this revenue that your competitors are bringing in? Well, it's all about great service and low fares. And if we can keep our costs low, we can afford to bundle all of those traditional services into the fare. Obviously, we drive very strong profit margins with that low cost structure and we're able to avoid nickel end timing our customers. That's what our customers want and that's certainly what we want to offer them. So with that, what does flight demand look like in 2018 from what you're looking at? Well, it's a real short cycle business. So we don't have a lot of insight beyond roughly the next 30 to 45 days. But the trends are very strong here in the fourth quarter. We had strong traffic for October. We'll be releasing our November traffic here shortly. We're expecting unit revenue growth year over year in the fourth quarter. And based on all the signs that we have available to us right now, the outlook for 2018 is really good. So our goal will be to maintain very strong load factors for next year and grow along with our capacity increase and continue to generate some positive unit revenue comparisons. And you're also set to start flights in Hawaii next year. Why enter this market? Well, it's an important market and it's where people want to go. We're the number one airline in California and in particular Hawaii is an important destination there. We have a lot of competition in Hawaii. It's just not a time for us to sit back and be complacent. So the number one thing customers look for in an airline is where do you fly? And it's missing from our route system. We're the largest airline serving America and it's just time for us to go. So we're excited about it. Our customers are excited about it and I think we'll be very successful there. And Gary, on your last earnings call you mentioned how you'd like to add more international destinations in 2018. Any areas that are on your wish list, would Europe ever be a possibility for you? Well, there are some areas on a wish list for sure but right now we're flying near international. We're using the Boeing 737 to do that. It performs that mission very well. Further, we're flying only south of the US at this point so it's Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America. So we'll continue in the near term to focus on that region. Right now we have 15 international destinations and as you asked me earlier, Hawaii is the next destination up for Southwest Airlines next year. So we'll just have to stay tuned about what we pick next. Europe is not on our list right now but it might be an opportunity for us at some point with the 737 in the future but right now our orientation is Caribbean, Mexico, Central America. Yeah because Norwegian Airlines is flying the 737 MAX from the New York area to Europe. It will absolutely do the mission and the thing that's very nice right now at Southwest is we have opportunities to expand within the 48 states. We have opportunities to expand beyond the borders to near international markets. At Hawaii we're looking at Alaska so all of that will keep us busy and Europe is just a lower priority for us. And Gary, I want to shift to a few questions about the broader airline industry. What about tax reform? Are you pleased with the proposals that are being debated right now in Congress? We're pleased. It would be certainly a benefit for the transportation industry and certainly a benefit for Southwest Airlines. I've written every member of Congress to let them know that we're a proponent. I do think that it would be good for the overall economy in terms of spurring growth and in particular in terms of driving job growth. So it's been a long time coming and a very welcome change and the airline industry in particular would I think is in need of that kind of tax burden relief and would benefit from that. And do you think consumers may be saving a few hundred dollars a year from lower taxes? Do you think some of that money would go into more travel spend? Well, I think that there's that potential consumer benefit. I think at least in terms of corporate tax reform just making corporations in the United States more competitive around the world is very, very important. And of course it will provide companies like ours the ability to invest more in the business, add jobs and just share those gains with lower taxes with shareholders, employees and customers. But to the extent that we can generate more growth in the economy, absolutely that's going to put more money in the hands of consumers and absolutely I think that will support more robust travel demand. And can you update us on the government's efforts to modernize the nation's air traffic control system? As an airline CEO, what would you like to see happen? Well, first of all we'd love to see the entire system modernized yesterday and have all of our flights efficiently scheduled and operated with next generation procedures, satellite based navigation techniques. And the current course just doesn't feel like that's going to happen in my lifetime, if ever. So we see the path forward there to reform the FAA by creating a not-for-profit entity that would be managed by a board of directors and would be able to fund these long live projects in a way that we can actually bring the modernization benefits to bear. So that's not the focus in Congress right now, as you know, it's on tax reform but I'm hopeful that we can take that up early next year and get that done. And when you say not-for-profit, would it be a full-on privatization of the air traffic control system or more of a perhaps government-private partnership? I think we'd be very happy with what the administration has proposed, what Chairman Schuster in the House has proposed, what NAV Canada looks like in Canada. And privatization implies a commercialization and that's not what we want, but yes it would be a separate corporation, it wouldn't be subject to the government budgeting process and it would be run more like a corporation in terms of operations as well as long-term financing and capital project management. So it's a very large institution, it's just behind in terms of the tools and techniques that we use and there's just tremendous opportunity to make the system more efficient, to have it be more climate-friendly and the benefits are potentially 15% less time in the air. So you can quickly do the math and see what kind of fuel savings and greenhouse gas emission savings that would translate to. Yeah, I mean if it's one thing we can all agree on is everyone hates airline delays and a better ATC system would help that. And Gary, before we let you go, the surge in Bitcoin prices has been just incredible. Do you see a world where I could eventually pay for my airfare in Bitcoin? Would you ever accept that? You know, it's kind of, it's hard to envision but it is astounding how fast that has moved and we'll just have to wait and see on that front. I think the way our monetary systems work today are pretty efficient. So I don't know that I have an opinion on that right now. It's obviously not mainstream with any of our travel purchases but who knows, something obviously to continue to monitor. Alright, well watch how it plays out. Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines. Pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Scott.