“Atlanta, here we come!”

That cry from the pilot of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 was more than an announcement from the cockpit. It heralded a take-off long awaited by fans of what may be the most unique airline in the sky.

“Southwest really follows its own drummer,” said WSB consumer advocate Clark Howard before boarding SWA Flight 1073 in Austin, Texas. “They almost don’t care what any other airline is up to.”

The first Southwest flight into Atlanta landed from Austin Sunday.

That flight ends an era of animosity between Atlanta and Southwest, Howard said, one that began with the demise of Eastern Airlines in 1991. After that airline went bankrupt, Southwest immediately tried to get Eastern’s gates at Hartsfield-Jackson, but was stopped cold.

“Both the city political leadership and the state political leadership blocked Southwest from coming in 21 years ago,” Howard recalled. “I did an interview with Herb Kelleher, then the CEO of Southwest, who said, as long as he was alive, there would never be a Southwest plane in Atlanta. He was that upset over the whole thing.”

Kelleher in fact has lived to see Southwest gain a toehold in Atlanta. Eventually, the airline will control 32 gates at Hartsfield-Jackson. Ironically, many of them were the very gates his airline sought to control in 1991.