Many people ask, “Why I should fly Southwest Airline”. As a frequent flyer of Southwest, I would just respond with “bags fly free and low affordable fares.” Southwest Airlines is the largest affordable carrier which markets the airline alone. Presently, today Southwest is one of the prominent affordable airlines because they believe in providing the best value in price and customer service. Another marketing strategy is that the Airbus carrier flies to over 100 destinations (U.S., Aruba, Belize, Bahamas and more) utilizes as many 686 aircraft fleets.
Southwest Airline statement reads, “The mission of Southwest Airlines is the dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual
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A good marketing approach develops the strategy. To compete efficiently, businesses should change the emphasis to more forward-thinking while highlighting economical goals, renew ways to resolve consumer difficulties, inspire consumers' buying platform, manage advantage by gathering customer statistics and connecting system conclusions based on spending. Southwest travels to smaller airports in the major cities for example, Dallas Love Field and Chicago Midway International Airport to considerably decrease costs for travelers. According to Gamble, Thompson, and Peteraf “companies such as Walmart, Apple, Southwest Airlines, and Google play hardball, aggressively pursuing competitive advantage and trying to reap the benefits a competitive marketing edge offers----a leading market share, excellent profit margins, and rapid growth” (2011, p.116). Southwest has set the standard of branding and marketing strategy. Many consumers may not understand what a brand is and how the airline operates. A brand has a simplistic definition “it is a promise.” The question arises, “Which do you favor when you fly……a low-cost, economy airline, or a more lavish and overpriced Airbus with fantastic provision levels and all-out coziness? The consumer always has a choice, but Southwest shares a good reason to fly with
Spirit makes our fares so low because they know that draws in the attention of the consumer. Once they have your attention you’re shocked at the price so you go for the deal, oblivious to the fact that you walked into their trap. Southwest’s symbol for shareholders is LUV while Spirit’s is SAVE. They are not the only companies to start to enter into these paths. Hotels, rental cars and cruises are all faced with the same choice to embrace the LUV or the thriftiness with SAVE (Elliot
Mason, K. J. (2001). "Marketing low-cost airline services to business travellers." Journal of Air Transport Management 7(2): 103-109.
Spirit addresses “price” by attempting to get the lowest possible fair for their potential customers. They have instituted their “unbundling” strategy that essentially removes all the conveniences that other airlines afford. Fees for checked bags, fees for flight changes, and no complementary in-flight beverages are just a few of the cost-trimming techniques employed. This strategy allows Spirit to come up with impossibly low fares. It also conforms to customers who just want to get from point A to point B without paying extra for services they don’t use. This strategy, coupled with an in-your-face “promotion” ploy, has made Spirit Airlines “the most profitable airline in the U.S.” (Nicas, 2012).
Despite its growing domestic network, the company didn’t offer international flights until July 2014, and even then, it only offered limited destinations (“Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet,” n.d.). Furthermore, the company’s reliance on a single aircraft is cause for concern. Southwest Airlines was also weak with technology utilization initially but has since turned this into an asset, as described later. Finally, the company has a limitation with providing customer perks due to its low-cost operations (Ross & Beath,
Even though Southwest offers no-frills, there is still a high degree of customer satisfaction that continuously builds customer loyalty for the company. As mentioned, Southwest offers low prices on their airplane tickets. Also, Southwest is renowned in the airline industry for its short turnaround time on arrivals and departures. And since people's biggest concern nowadays is money and time, having low price airline tickets to cater their traveling needs in a shorter period of time will surely satisfy them. Moreover, aside from the low prices offered, what attracts to customers is Southwest’s way in dealing with them. The employees of the airline treat their customers well and really listen to their needs.
Since 1987, when the Department of Transportation began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics, Southwest has consistently led the entire airline industry with the lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded. Many airlines have tried to copy Southwest’s business model, and the Culture of Southwest is admired and emulated by corporations and organizations in all walks of life. Always the innovator, Southwest pioneered Senior Fares, a same-day air freight delivery service, and Ticketless Travel. Southwest led the way with the first airline web page—southwest.com, DING, the first-ever direct link to Customer’s computer desktops that delivers live updates on the hottest deals, and the first airline corporate blog, Nuts About Southwest. Our Share the Spirit community programs make Southwest the hometown airline of every city we serve.
JetBlue's mission is "to bring humanity back to air travel". Its low-cost strategy is second-to-none, not even to Southwest. Utilizing Southwest as a model and benchmark early in Neeleman's career in the industry, he's managed to copy the Southwest model and expand upon it with his ability to find more innovative ways to cut costs along the organization's value-chain, while utilizing technology to increase productivity and further add to operational efficiencies. JetBlue's value chain demonstrates its ability to successfully compete in several key areas relative to the bases of competition within the industry and creates processes that focus on reducing costs, for the specific purpose of continuously creating value for its customers, i.e. fare pricing, customer service, routes served, flight schedules, types of aircraft, safety record and reputation, in-flight entertainment systems and frequent flyer programs.
In 1967 after its incorporation, Southwest Airlines wasn’t able to board customers until 1971, due to a lengthy struggle with the court (Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet, 2017). In the United States, Southwest is currently the largest low-cost passenger airlines, launching on high travel days over 3,800 flights daily (Armstrong, 2017). One would agree that Southwest Airlines is a popular airline used by consumers due to discount pricing, bags fly free, package discounts, budget corporate travel, and cargo flights. One would also agree Southwest is considerable for vacationers, frequent fliers, and holiday and business travelers. Offering cheap prices to fly through the United States, Southwest is known for having a philosophy of low pricing
While economic recession can reduce traveler’s willingness to travel due to lower disposable income, Southwest Airlines’ business strategy to offer everyday low prices provide travelers economic travel options. SWA is known for its cheap airplane tickets, which enables the airlines to absorb market share from other big airlines, such as United Airlines and Delta Airlines. Due to high dependence on fuels, airline industry is highly susceptible to fuel prices. Between 2009 and early 2014, price of jet oil has more than doubled (infomine, 2014).
Southwest Airlines strategy of focusing on short haul passenger and providing rates as low as one third of their competitors, they have seen tremendous growth in the last decade. Market share for top city pairs on Southwest's schedule has reached 80% to 85%. Maintaining the largest fleet of 737's in the world and utilizing point-to-point versus the hub-and-spoke method of connection philosophy allowed Southwest to provide their service to more people at a lower cost. By putting the employee first, Southwest has found the key to success in the airline business. A happy worker is a more productive one as well as a better service provider. Southwest will continue to reserve their growth in the future by entering select markets only after careful market research.
The heart is now more prominent in the branding and the biggest and most unique reflection of this is a large heart painted on the underbelly of each plane (Phelps, 2016). Southwest positions itself in all its marketing communications as the only low-fare, short-haul, high-frequency, point-to-point carrier in America that is fun to fly. Its low-priced fares are a brand equity which it "owns" in the mathematical sense of being the only major airline with a strong score on this attribute based on consumer research. Southwest’s brand exudes an element of fun: a down-home attitude which it leverages to present the consequences of low fares in a positive light (YouSigma).
The mission of Southwest Airlines is a dedication to the highest quality of service delivered with warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit (Mission…, 2007). The company also provides opportunities for learning and personal growth to each employee. Creativity and innovation is very important and highly encouraged, for the purposes of improving effectiveness. Employees are to be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that the employees are expected to share with the customer. Southwest Airlines was initially created to be a low-cost alternative to high price of intra-Texas air carriers (Freiberg, 1996). Southwest’s fares were originally supposed to compete with car and bus transportation. It was a little airline, and it would withstand the test of time. As a discount, no-frills airline, it would provide stiff competition for larger airlines. Their strategy was to operate at low cost, offering no food, no movies, no first class, and no reserved seats. They created their own market and provided increased turnaround times at the gate, by avoiding hub-and-spoke airports and opting for short-haul, direct flights. Through this market approach, Southwest has a majority of market share in the markets they serve.
The low cost and no frills strategy is make travel affordable at low cost. The company only operates one type of aircraft which is Boeing 737 to help maintenance cost low. Southwest was the first airline to use E-ticketing in this way customer can reserve spot and buy ticket on their web and allow less expense in printing tickets. Medium measured airports which allowed them to produce better time performance and less fuel costs so plane do not have to wait in the line at the runway. The core value of the company of “LUV and fun” makes the company great place to work that gives customer with a great experience.
When a business aims to be as successful as possible in selling its products and services, it must examine in detail whether or not the products will be attractive and necessary; if the price is optimal; if the product is being distributed in the best locations; and finally, how interest and awareness can be created for the products. In order for a business to target all of these elements to the right people at the right time, it must employ the right type of marketing mix: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. In a dysfunctional time for the airline industry, most airlines, especially major carriers, are adapting the concept of "doing less with more." One low-cost carrier, JetBlue, is changing the domestic aviation landscape in this regard and is defying the odds. Here is a company that has examined each marketing mix elements carefully, has adapted them to its customer’s needs, and is succeeding because of this approach.
The company’s cost leadership strategy of keeping their fares low to ensure frequent and convenient travel along with its playful, fun poking advertising, exciting promotional ways, and various vibrant ways of operation enabled the company to expand exuded its effect on both customer and competitors, thus lowering the prices in the new market. This is the ‘Southwest