Southwest Airlines Weaknesses

Southwest Airline’s greatest strength is their financial stability. They are able to maintain profits even when the industry is in economic crisis. Their financial success is in large part due to their low operational costs. Short haul, point-to-point trips allow them to save time and money. This not only provides faster trips to customers with shorter wait time, but also increase the amount of customer turnover which provides more profitability. Southwest should continue to operate at low costs so they may continue to provide low prices to their customers, since cheap flights is one of the keystones of the company.

A weakness of Southwest Airlines is having a small footprint within the global market. Though they acquired AirTran, which expanded

Competitors can adopt similar strategies which would reduce Southwest’s competitive edge. Much like in the aforementioned Azul airlines example, airline companies can implement Southwest techniques to areas that Southwest does not currently offer service. Furthermore, a competitor can modify and implement the Southwest strategies to outperform Southwest in areas such as customer service or comfort of travel.

In addition, Southwest has many factors that threaten its low price mantra. These factors include: increased oil prices which leads to increased fuel cost, low cost competitors such as Jetblue and Frontier threaten to out compete Southwest, terrorist attacks threaten to damage the brand, and recessions threaten because of a decrease in air travel from consumers.

Southwest 's Competitive Advantage

Southwest has a distinctive and tactical approach to its position within the market. Its main strategic points are that it maintains a low-cost pricing structure, sustains customer approval through employee satisfaction, continually looks to improve its systems through innovated techniques and frequently reinvents itself, and a tendency to go against the grain to separate itself dramatically from its

Other airlines approached the economic crisis by limiting their service or letting go of employees, whereas Southwest tackled the problem by offering workers secured positions for lower wages. Though the circumstances were not ideal, overall employees responded positively to the option of keeping their jobs. They also promote internal marketing strategies within the workplace. Southwest has a clear vision which employees strive to be a part of. In fact, part of their vision is in the best interest of their employees, as a common mantra within the company is, “customers come second… and still get great service.” They offer a casual work environment. This approach not only benefits the employees comfort, but also coincides with the company’s easy-going brand image it wishes to portray. Employees are at ease in at their job and overall enjoy what they do. Southwest also makes a point to attract the desirable candidates for their positions. They emphasize teamwork. Employees are encouraged to help each other out to strive toward a common goal. Employees are often rewarded for their achievements as well. As seen in exhibit 1, these strategies to keep employee satisfaction high, are factors that keep loyal employees within the company.5 Southwest makes every attempt to keep employees content as they believe happy employees lead to happy customers. Southwest has