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Strengths and weaknesses of southwest airlines
Case study about southwest airlines
Case study about southwest airlines
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Operations resources
One of Southwest Airlines’ operations resources is their flight point-to-point service to maximize its operational efficiency and stay cost-effective, where its aim is to keep their aircrafts in the air more often to achieve better capacity utilization. Another resource that they have is the consistent aircrafts that they employ, in which they only use one type of aircraft , the Boeing 737 jets. By maintaining a single model fleet, it significantly simplifies scheduling, operations and flight maintenance. Then training costs for pilots, ground crew and mechanics are not as high, due to the fact that there's only a single aircraft to learn. This then makes the purchasing, provisioning, and other operations vastly simplified and thereby lowering costs. A third operations resource that they have is their airport operations that include the following: “Ramp Agents, Operations Agents, Customer Service Agents, Provisioning Agents and Cargo Agents” (Our People). Without them, a flight on Southwest would not go as smoothly as it does now. The last operations resource to consider is Online or E-tickets. This allows the customer to be able to find the flight they want in their own home without the hassle of booking through a travel agent, it is fast and convenient.
Research & Development Resources
Once of their resources is their service by their low fare, short haul, high frequency, point to point destinations from their 3,500 flights a day. A second resource is technological competence in use of new innovations. This is done by the following: 1) their online forum where a customer can share their stories as well as their advice traveling, rate the hotel, restaurant, etc. Where Southwest can also monitor to gau...
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...nerCountry=USA http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=JBLU®ion=usa&culture=en-US&ownerCountry=USA http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=LUV®ion=usa&culture=en-US&ownerCountry=USA http://www.transtats.bts.gov/Data_Elements.aspx?Data=1 http://southwest.investorroom.com http://investor.jetblue.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=131045&p=irol-irhome http://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/baggage/index-pol.html http://www.southwest.com/html/air/products/mobile.html http://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/airport-experience/index-pol.html http://www.southwest.com/html/southwest-difference/southwest-citizenship/index.html http://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/careers/our-team.html http://www.swamedia.com/channels/Corporate-Fact-Sheet/pages/corporate-fact-sheet http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/board.asp?ticker=LUV
Southwest Airlines is one of the biggest United States airlines which prides itself in its low-cost strategy to attract and keep up more clients. On a given day, Southwest Airlines operates over 3,400 flights. It has a more than of 46,000 employees. To reduce maintenance and training costs, Southwest Airlines use only Boeing 737s. As of today the company operates 647 Boeing 737s, which fly to 93 destinations across the US. Southwest Airlines have been able to survive even when faced with stiff competition because of its low cost approach. However, this success has also been attributed to the high level of care and appreciation on its clients and employees.
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,
This is the historic background of an American Airline company called the Southwest Airlines Co. based in Dallas which still exists and operates with great success between 57 cities in 26 states of the US, by over 300 airplanes , providing primarily short-haul, high frequency, point to point, low fare service . Through this essay we will see an analysis of the company’s advantages and disadvantages through a SWOT Analysis. We will try to localize the problems of the company at the time and in the case of a future expansion, and we will try to give a number of alternative solutions and chose one of them. The Southwest Airlines is a company that has done its first movements in the airline world in 1971 after many efforts for its opening through legal battles with competitors that did not believe that there was any particular reason why the another airline company should exist among all the others already existing. The different things that the new airline company provided were many and very interesting. The idea started from two friends Rolling King, and investment advisor, and Herb Kelleher, his lawyer, who met in order to discuss the idea of Rolling King for a low-fare, no- frills airline to fly between three major cities in Texas. The outcome of this discussion was in reality the decision of the two men to go for something that they believed would work, even though they were not positive about that. After all the legal battles between the two men and the airline companies of Texas at the time who believed it was not necessary for another airline company to enter the market, battles that prevented the operation of the company for three whole years, Southwest Airlines Co. had become a reality. Other legal battles followed in the future that justified the Southwest Airlines but left the company broke, while during the first year of its operations made losses and the earnings for the next half a year were balancing with costs. Gladly the recovery came soon and by 1978 Southwest Airlines was one of the most profitable in the country. Later on, Southwest Airlines Co. managed to provide airline transportation in eight more cities in Texas and dominated the Texas market, with low prices and frequent departures. Today the Southwest Airlines Co. is a very big domestic airline company, the fourth in the US. We will now have a small analysis of the company’s environme...
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.
Having a low amount of cost in their operations is one of the contributing factors in Southwest Airlines’ financial success. Such low cost model of the corporation is brought about by an effective strategy. Southwest uses only one type of aircraft – the fuel-efficient Boeing 737. This tactic keeps training and maintenance costs down. Moreover, the no-frills approach to customer service contributed to the low cost of operations for Southwest. The airline does not serve meals on board, and there are no luxurious or first class seats offered. Services like these have been seen by the airline as unnecessary for an airline that provides a short-haul trip from city to city. By these, Southwest were able to offer low price tickets to customers, which was good for the company because most people would prefer to fly without those services mentioned if it meant for cheaper ticket price.
More than 37 years ago, Rollin King and Herb Kelleher got together and decided to start a different kind of airline. They began with one simple notion: If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline. And you know what? They were right. What began as a small Texas airline has grown to become one of the largest airlines in America. Today, Southwest Airlines flies over 104 million passengers a year to 64 great cities all across the country, and we do it more than 3,400 times a day.
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...
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.
For years, Southwest Airlines has been experiencing stable costs, low fares and traffic stimulation. However, the latest changes in the marketplace (See Exhibit 1: SWOT Analysis), including the higher energy costs and the entrance of new low fare/cost carriers are threatening the future of the airline. As a result, LUV needs to decide whether or not to acquire the slots and gates from the bankrupt ATA Airlines at LaGuardia (LGA) terminal in New York City (NYC) in order to expand its capabilities.
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.
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 many strong aspects contributing to its success. Its firm operating strategy, strong fleet and dominant market share in North America has kept them in the game along with JetBlue and other competitors. Through the acquisition of AirTran it has gained a great opportunity and expanded its market internationally, which was considered to be one of the things holding them back in the previous years. The company’s very conservative growth strategy, which has delayed its globalization, has also worked in their favor during the economic decline by not becoming involved in an area, which they were unfamiliar with.
...yees fit within the corporate culture believing that truly fun-loving and spirited employees bring superior customer service through their inherent attitudes that are allowed to shine without the confining regulations and propriety that so many other airlines practice. Southwest employees routinely go the extra mile to help a customer because—by and large—they genuinely care about making people happy. Just as most other wildly successful companies, Southwest’s philosophy agrees that happy employees translates into happy customers and happy stockholders.