Taking A Look At Southwest Airlines

Strengths – Southwest Airlines is a market share leader. In 2010, “it transported more passengers from U.S. airports to U.S. destinations than any other airline and offered more regularly scheduled domestic flights than any other airline” (Crafting & Executing Strategy, 2015, p. 736). Southwest also ranked the 2nd best airlines according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) rankings of customer satisfaction (Ausick, 2014).
Another strength is that Southwest uses a different approach by putting their employees first and encouraging them to show a friendly, fun loving spirit. Southwest believes that happy employees will provide high quality customer service. Which will give customers a positive flying experience and encourages repeat travel.
Plus, to keep fares low Southwest uses various methods to cut

To some customers this is important because they like the comfort of larger chairs, more legroom, business services, and priority check-in and boarding.
Southwest also doesn’t offer assigned seating. Most customers like to know ahead of time where they are going to sit. Having an open seating policy can delay boarding since passengers do not know where there will be seat availability or if their group can sit together.
Another weakness is that Southwest is one of the most highly unionized airlines. An unresolvable disagreement can turn into a strike, which leads to a great loss of money. Such as the machinist strike in the early 80’s and the difficult negotiations in 2000 – 2001 over “new wages and benefits for ramp, baggage operators, provisioning and freight personnel” (Crafting & Executing Strategy, 2015, p.763).
Opportunities – The acquisition of AirTran is a great opportunity for Southwest because it serves new cities and a major airport not covered by Southwest. This purchase can bring in an additional 2 million passengers annually (Crafting & Executing Strategy, 2015, p.