Southwest Airlines Co. Retirement Savings Plan
Southwest Airlines Co. · Dallas, TX · EIN 741563240 · Plan 004 · Form 5500 for plan year 2024
What Southwest Airlines put into the plan, per active participant
$6,490
Southwest Airlines Co. put $6,490 into this plan for each of its 74,221 active participants in plan year 2024. That is the whole employer side, matching money, profit sharing, non-elective and safe-harbor contributions and reallocated forfeitures together, because the Form 5500 reports them on one line, so it is not the match rate.
Southwest Airlines put in more per active participant than 87% of plans with 5,000+ participants in transportation and logistics. The middle plan in that group of 124 reported $1,783. Transportation and logistics comes from business code 481000, which Southwest Airlines Co. entered on its own Form 5500. Sponsors pick that code themselves, so a code that does not describe what the employer does ranks the plan against the wrong companies.
What this figure cannot separate: how much Southwest Airlines pays, and how much it puts in
This is dollars, not a rate. A Form 5500 carries no payroll, so the figure reflects both how much the employer puts in and how much the employer pays: two plans running the same formula report different amounts when one pays better. Crossing the peer group with industry holds most of that difference still, and none of it disappears.
This is one plan year, not an average. A true-up, a plan merger or a one-off contribution moves a single year on its own.
Source: Form 5500 filing for the plan year ended December 31, 2024, received by the DOL September 24, 2025 · DOL EFAST2 ↗
The $6,490 above is the Form 5500 figure for plan year 2024, and it counts every employer dollar on one line. Southwest Airlines Co. also files a Form 11-K, which states the match formula on its own for plan year 2025: the section below reads $4,604 a year at a $49,500 salary, and the same filing states employer contributions made outside the match. That second figure is what the formula pays one worker on that salary, and not an amount either filing reports. The two figures cover different plan years and measure different things, so neither one is the other one corrected.
What the plan cost, per participant
$46.99
The plan paid $46.99 per participant in plan-paid administrative expenses in plan year 2024, cheaper than 58% of plans with 5,000+ participants. The middle plan of that size paid $54.84.
Why a plan this big pays less per person before anything else
Bigger plans pay less per head by construction, because the same negotiated bill divides across more people. That is why this ranking sits inside the plan's own size cohort and is never taken across all plans.
Schedule H reports only what came out of plan assets. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees taken inside fund expense ratios, never appear here, so this is a floor and not the all-in cost.
401(k) Monitor Score
78 out of 100
Where this plan stands against plans of its size and industry on two amounts its Form 5500 reports: employer money in per active person, and plan-paid cost per person. It reads no match formula, no vesting schedule and no fund lineup, because a Form 5500 states none of them.
- What the employer put in, per active participant: $6,490. Higher than 87% of plans with 5,000+ participants in transportation and logistics.
- What the plan cost, per participant: $46.99. Cheaper than 58% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
On this page: the match and vesting terms · what to check next · every figure on the filing · fees itemised · the plans this one is ranked against · service providers
The match and vesting terms, from a Form 11-K
The match formula and the vesting schedule are stated in a Form 11-K, which is filed only by employers whose plan holds company stock. A Form 5500 reports neither.
What Southwest Airlines puts in
$4,604
a year, at a $49,500 salary.
The filing discloses only part of the formula. The most it states the employer adds is 9.3% of pay, for a worker contributing 9.3% of pay.
The match paragraph, word for word
“If participants are not governed by a collective bargaining agreement, the Company matching contribution is determined at the sole and absolute discretion of the Board of Directors of the Company. For the year ended December 31, 2025, the Company contributed a matching contribution equal to 100 percent of each of the Plan's participants' salary reduction contributions, up to 9.3 percent for the majority of each participants' compensation for all collectively bargained and non-collectively bargained Employees.”
What you contribute to collect all of it
Contribute at least 9.3% of your pay to collect the full match.
That is $4,604 a year at a $49,500 salary, and it scales with your own.
Vesting score
57.14 out of 100
How fast the employer’s money becomes yours. Higher than 4% of the 253 schedules we have scored.
It measures vesting speed and nothing else. It says nothing about the size of the match, what the plan charges, or the funds inside it.
Share of the employer's money that is the worker's at hire and at each of the first 6 anniversaries: 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%, 100%. The score is the average of those 7 readings.
Vesting, word for word
“Participants are always fully vested in their own contributions, Company non-elective contributions, and applicable earnings on those contributions. Participants vest in Company matching and profit-sharing contributions at 20 percent per year of vesting service up to five years, after which they are fully vested. A participant who is credited with 1,000 hours or more of service during any Plan year will accumulate one year of vesting service. Additionally, a participant is also 100 percent vested upon attainment of normal retirement age, which is age 59½, disability, or death, even if the participant does not have five years of vesting service at that time.”
The wait before the match starts and the year-end true-up appear above when the filing states them. Neither is part of the score, and a filing that is silent on one of them is not a plan without it.
What the plan costs, against plans of its size
42nd percentile
$46.99 per participant in plan-paid administrative cost, cheaper than 58% of plans with 5,000+ participants.
The match, vesting and eligibility terms above are read from the Form 11-K filed by Southwest Airlines Co., whose page states the full formula, the vesting schedule and the sentence behind each one.
Matched to this employer by sponsor name, not by an identifier stated in the filing. That Form 11-K covers Southwest Airlines Co. Retirement Savings Plan.
What to check next
Collecting the whole match
Southwest Airlines’s Form 11-K pays the whole match at 9.3% of pay, which is $4,604 a year at a $49,500 salary and scales with your own. Your payslip and your Empower ↗ account both show the rate you set. A rate below 9.3% collects less than the whole match.
That Form 11-K covers plan year 2025. The plan’s Summary Plan Description states the terms in force, and the plan administrator must provide it to participants on request. The filing discloses only part of the formula.
Your own numbers are not on this page
Every figure here is the whole plan for plan year 2024, taken from one filing and divided by headcounts. Your own contribution rate, your balance and the fees taken from your account are on your recordkeeper’s site, which this filing names as Empower ↗. What you may put in during a year is set by the IRS and not by the plan: this year’s limits ↗.
Key figures
| Total plan assets, end of year | $16,991,748,637 |
|---|---|
| Net assets | $16,991,748,637 |
| Participants, beginning of year | 76,550 |
| Of which active | 74,221 |
| Plan type | Single employer |
| Size cohortThe peer group we rank fees against. | 5,000+ participants |
| Employer share of the money that went in, plan year 2024The rest came from employees, who put in $494,931,706. The share falls when employees save more, so a plan whose staff contribute heavily reads lower here through no act of the employer. It is printed as a fact and it is not part of the score. | 49% |
Plan-paid administrative expenses
The plan paid $3,597,092 in administrative expenses in plan year 2024, across 76,550 participants: $46.99 per participant.
| Contract administrator fees | not reported in filing |
|---|---|
| Professional fees | not reported in filing |
| Investment management fees | $43,923 |
| Other administrative fees | $30,225 |
These are plan-paid expenses from Schedule H only. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees embedded in fund expense ratios, never appear here. This figure is a floor, not the all-in cost, and a low number is not “free”.
The plans this one is ranked against
Fees on this page are ranked against the 5,000+ participant cohort, where the median plan pays $54.84 per participant. The sponsor files from Texas, one of 4,254 plans on file there, at a median of $107.93 per participant. Its business code places the plan in transportation and logistics, one of 1,926 on file, which run to a median of $95.71.
Plans of a similar size in Texas
| Plan | Participants | Cost per participant |
|---|---|---|
| H-E-B Savings & Retirement PlanH.E.Butt Grocery Company | 114,181 | $33.71 |
| Tesla, Inc. 401(k) PlanTesla, Inc. | 94,241 | $36.71 |
| 7-Eleven, Inc. 401(k) Plan7-Eleven, Inc. | 65,473 | $26.63 |
| J. C. Penney Corporation, Inc. Safe Harbor 401(k) Savings PlanPenney Opco, LLC | 64,120 | $19.81 |
Service providers (Schedule C)
Recordkeeper: Empower (as filed: “EMPOWER ANNUITY INSURANCE COMPANY”)
7,876 plans on file name Empower as their recordkeeper, at a median of $165.69 per participant.
| Provider | Service codes | Direct comp. ($) | Indirect comp. ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empower Annuity Insurance Company | 64 | 3,452,920 | 0 |
| Cbiz Cpas P.C. | 50, 10 | 67,400 | not reported |
| State Street Global Advisors Trust | 50, 27 | 31,250 | not reported |
| Qdro Consultants Company | 50, 16 | 30,225 | not reported |
| Nepc LLC | 50, 27 | 12,673 | not reported |
| Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. | 71, 59, 50, 33, 26 | 12,428 | 0 |
Useful links
- Find a 401(k) you left at an old job ↗
The DOL's Retirement Savings Lost & Found. Free and official.
- Look up this plan's full Form 5500 ↗
The DOL's own filing search. Search by plan or sponsor name.
- Download this plan's data (CSV) ↗
Every field on this page, one row, ready for a spreadsheet.
Source
| Dataset | DOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA) |
|---|---|
| Form year | 2024 |
| Filing ACK_ID | 20250924095327NAL0008455920001 |
| Dataset last refreshed | July 28, 2026 |
Bulk dataset at askebsa.dol.gov ↗ · Look up the filing on EFAST2 ↗
Filings lag by design: a plan can file up to 9½ months after its year ends, so this is the newest data on file. Why filings lag
Cite this page
401(k) Monitor, "Southwest Airlines Co. Retirement Savings Plan: Form 5500 facts", from DOL EFAST2 filing 20250924095327NAL0008455920001, plan year ended December 31, 2024. 401(k) Monitor Score 78 out of 100 (exact value 78.3).