The airline industry has been full of competition for years. It takes determination, preparation, knowledge, and recourses to start an airline company, and that is just what happened forty-five years ago in Dallas Texas. Southwest airlines is an very successful airline company serving around 100 million customers annually (Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet). Many things stick out about Southwest such as their satellite-based WIFI and free luggage. These accommodations appeal to the customers. The company described its mission as “dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit” (About Southwest). But from a business standpoint it is necessary to look into …show more content…
Chief executive Gary Kelley has said “the airline has an opportunity to add up to 50 new destinations over the next few years as it continues to grow” (CEO Lays Groundwork). This is a huge step for Southwest and will allow them to stay competitive in the industry. They are also looking at having more straight flights available to states within the United States that cut out layovers. This would increase customer satisfaction and retention. Looking at aspects such as customer satisfaction is a big way for Southwest Airlines to stay competitive. The low-fares and customer satisfaction is what Southwest Airlines is built on, and in order for them to stay competitive, they must maintain that foundation. Just in their slight mess up in 2014, they were able to see how important pleasing their customers actually is. It did not take them very long to reverse their actions. When it is all said and done, making more money by cramming flights together was not cost effective considering the loss of customers. It is also important for Southwest to continue innovation and creativity. In a competitive industry that is always changing, they will need to stay up to date and fresh when it comes to new ideas. They should continue looking at ways to grow and expand, without giving up any of the aspects that make them the successful company that they
As the project management triangle states, “do you want something done good, cheap, or fast?. Pick two!” That had been the constraints applied to many businesses until the launch of Southwest airlines in the mid 1960’s. Southwest managed to break free of the management triangle and offer safe (good), low cost (cheap), and timely (fast) air service in Texas and eventually across the United States. From the beginning, the company’s staff and management shared these goals, and developed a foundation on which to build the business. Visionary leaders Rollin King, Herb Kelleher, Colleen Barrett and other early leaders at Southwest, proved that there is no more competitive advantage than a dedicated, loyal work force. Her Kelleher’s transformational leadership style was just what the new airline needed to be successful, and motivate the staff of SWA to do what no other airline had done before: offer cheap, short distance, no frills air service, and make a profit doing it.
American Airlines and US Airways are in the aviation industry. Both companies provide air transportation services for passengers and freight. Together they have formed American Airlines Group, Inc., the world’s largest airline, as measured by revenue passenger miles (RPMs) and available seat miles (ASMs). In 2012 the U.S. airline industry was worth approximately $195billion in operating revenue, up from $154billion in 2009, including an operating fleet of 3,451 aircraft.1
Another internal challenge for Southwest Airlines is the conflicting management style and business operation with AirTran. On top of that, the external challenges such as the increase of competitions and gas prices are some of issues f...
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,
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.
It is evident that the greatest strength that Southwest Airlines has is its financial stability. As known in the US airline industry, Southwest is one of those airlines who are consistently earning profits despite the problems the industry is facing. With such stability, the corporation is able to make decisions and adjust policies, which other heavily burdened airlines may not be able to imitate.
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.
Pricing. Their pricing strategy is based off their market position as a budget airline. Positioning their company as a budget airline, Southwest can maintain and keep their lower price points compared to their competitors. For Southwest to maintain sustainability as a market leader, they must effectively utilize their resources to reduce their cost of operations. By only operating one type of aircraft, short non-stop flights, point to point routes, and flying into less crowded secondary airports, this has allowed Southwest Airlines to keep their price points down while simultaneously reducing their planes turnaround time.
Advertising: As one of the largest domestic airlines, Southwest Airlines has an enormous advertising budget to sustain its presence and increase its market share through focusing on the benefits of flying Southwest over its competitors. Southwest recognizes that flying is no longer a pleasurable experience for many customers, even on Southwest, historically a budget airline. Even though Southwest is often regarded as a no-frills airline, it still attempts to build goodwill from its customers based on its advertising. Of the $249 million it spent on advertising in 2011, Southwest Airlines is unique in that it does not sell additional ad space on the exterior of its aircraft. Many domestic airlines have begun selling aircraft exterior space as a way to increase revenue, but Southwest Airlines insists that it wants to keep its product and advertisi...
Since CEO Gary Kelly took the reins of the company back in 2004, Southwest has maintained and enhanced the company’s ability to offer customers a great flying experience for low fares. This effort start early in Mr. Kelly’s tenure when he identified four success factors
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.
Southwest has comprehensive strategy and they work with harmony. They are low cost airlines which make the customer feel like royalty. Southwest have a winning strategy is proven by their profit year after year even thought they had economy crisis. Since 1973 Southwest reported a profit each year even when they lost billions of dollars from the year 1980 to 2009 because of the low operating cost strategy, low fares and customer service. Since the start of Southwest they have stay faithful of keeping low cost across the industry. Their value in corporate culture reflected through their prices and customer service.
It all started in 1971, when Rolling King and Herb Kelleher decided to challenge the existing rut of charging high prices for air travels. They considered the railways and roadways their competitors and decided to offer cheaper travel for smaller routes. The company was incorporated in 1967, apart from initial entry troubles, Southwest has been the only US airline to have earned profits since 1973. The eccentric company’s outlandish way of conducting themselves has been the sole reason for Southwest Airlines to succeed in a highly competitive and packed industry.
Before to select the proper alternative, three alternatives were analysed and evaluated under four decisions criteria: customer experience, cost, growth rate / market penetration and ease to implementation (See Exhibit 2: Factor Analysis). Between all the alternatives, it was suggested that Southwest Airlines enters to New York City by bidding the slots and gates at the LGA (See Exhibit 3: Alternatives Analysis). This alternative sustains the challenge of changing the customer experience which means adding more flights from and to the East; furthermore, entering to new markets will reinforce “the power of the network” through LGA. At the same time, this decision will allow signing more code-sharing agreements with other airlines flying to international destinations and offer new products and services to LUV customers as loyalty rewards, in-flight internet, onboard duty-free purchases, etc.; as a result of this, it will increase passenger’s insights and experiences by flying with Southwest Airlines. Nevertheless, there is potential risk by selecting this alternative, in the recent years the energy prices has had a huge increase affecting costs, fares and even capacity needed, however Southwest Airlines has been able to hedge fuel for decad...
David Neelman realized his vision of creating an airlines company that is focused on customer service by starting JetBlue. During the startup phase or entrepreneurial stage, typically most of the companies go through the activities of marketing the service and /or product. But Neelman, perceptive of the industry needs, went about raising enough capital before starting JetBlue, as airlines industry is a capital intensive industry. His entrepreneurial style and previous experience enabled him to identify the core value of the service “To improve the passenger experience at a low cost” that he wanted JetBlue to provide. Neelman wanted to utilize technology to bring better customer experience at a low cost. Some of the technological activities that JetBlue planned include state-of-the-art revenue management system, paperless tickets etc. His in-depth experience enabled him to identify the external factors that would affect the business such as simple check-in and boarding process, hassle free ticketing procedures etc. This emphasized his knowledge of adapting to the ever changing customer needs. Neelman instilled the culture of...