Alaska Airlines And The Corporate Culture

Business Strategy – BAD 4013 – SUMMER 1999 Case Study Southwest Airlines I. Strategic Profile and Case Analysis Purpose The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit. Twenty-seven years ago, Rolling King, owner of floundering commuter airline, and Herb Kelleher, King’s lawyer, got together and decided to start a different kind of airline that would provide a short-haul, low-fair, high-frequency, point-to-point service in the United States. The company began service on June 18, 1971 with flights between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio (“The Golden Triangle” as Herb called it). Southwest Airlines is the fourth

Macro: The first problem changing the culture at British Airways was the merger of the BOAC and BEA. In 1971, the Civil Aviation Act became law and the board was to control policy over British Airways but both BOAC and BEA remained autonomous, each with its own chairman, board, and chief executive. This caused a split within British Airways throughout the 1970s and in the mid-1980. The second problem BA faced was the threat of privatization. In 1984 the government passed legislation that made BA a public limited company. The third was productivity was bad compared to other leading foreign airlines. The fourth was poor service. Poor customer service

The grand strategy is delivered through a final marketing strategy; Alaskan Airlines currently services over 60 cities and three countries, has a pro-active program in place to reduce emissions from jet engines, an extensive recycling program at facilities and is developing/using technologies to fly more economical routes. Recently Colgan Air decided not fly offer service from Presque to Logan International, PenAir a partner of Alaskan Air decided to provide the service at a $115 round trip. This gives Alaskan Airlines the ability to provide customers with outstanding service while becoming a better global citizen.

American airlines is a corporation that exhibits all of the characteristics of a firm in an industry where good tactical management is the key to success. This company and its regional airline partner American eagle serve almost 250 cities around the world and operate more than 3600 daily flights. Its goal is to provide safe, dependable and friendly air transportation along with related services, making a great effort to transform any experience into a positive one. All of the services that this company has and the image that they are trying to keep in every day activities make each day an inevitable challenge for its employees.

“Your employees come first, and if you treat your employee’s right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that” (Byrne, 2012). This quote from Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines, embodies the leadership at the airline. Southwest is the leading low-cost airline based in Dallas, Texas and founded in 1967 by Herb Kelleher and Rollin King. They dare to differ from other carriers because their philosophy revolves around people both internal and external. Communication, culture, and leadership are the cornerstone of their success. This paper explores key leader’s communique tactics, the role communication plays in daily operations, how the mission, vision, and culture reinforce the goals, and the prominence of connecting with internal and external stakeholders. A clearer understanding the role of communication and culture at Southwest are beneficial in developing best practices for any organization.

In 2008, the senior management team at Continental Airlines, commanded by Lawrence Kellner, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, convened a special meeting to discuss the firm’s latest quarterly financial results. A bleak situation lay before them. Continental had incurred an operating loss of $71 million dollars—its second consecutive quarterly earnings decline that year. Likewise, passenger volume was significantly down, dropping by nearly 5 percent from the prior year’s quarter. Continental’s senior management needed to act swiftly to reverse this trend and return to profitability.

Information systems development: AirTran uses Navitaire as reservations system vendor while Southwest uses Sabre to better accommodates international flights. Also, AirTran uses online travel agencies for ticket distribution while Southwest sells its tickets via telephone and its website.

Southwest Airlines represents a rather unique organizational force that has driven the company to success since its inception in 1971. One of the most unique features about the organizational structure is that it is largely decentralized and employees are openly welcomed to express their opinions on a wide range of organizational issues. However, despite the "hands off" management strategy, the company consistently ranks as one of the top airlines in regards to customer complaints; in 2008, for example, the company received 0.25 complaints on average for every one hundred thousand passengers who used the aviation services (Triangle Business Journal, 2009). This analysis will look at some of the organizational factors that have contributed to the success of Southwest Airlines over the course of the last few decades.

They faced the potential that by that following April they had losses close to £250 million in two years.

HR Policies and Leadership: The advanced employee training techniques and employee engagement is an important element of Southwest’s success so far. The exceptional customer service which differentiates SW from their competitors is attributed to their strong employee base. Herb Kelleher, a transformational leader, led the organization by maintaining a fun-filled culture. By creating a friendly working environment in the organization, CEO of southwest airlines was able to retain the employees in the organization. Employees were not only extrinsically motivated to be in the company but intrinsically motivated to be a part of the Southwest Airlines family. It was demonstrated from the fact that when there was a downturn, managers froze their salary for 5 years just to maintain

This short paper is an overview of Southwest Airlines, its strategy, and what role Human

Boeing was recently faced with the scandals which hurt the reputation of Boeing. The top management recognized the problem and tried to figure it out by effective management strategies.

Organizations like the Southwest Airlines all have a culture, which demonstrates how the organization works and usually acts as its motivational tool. An organizational culture is important to the organization, as it is the major element in helping attain the organization's goals and objectives. Cultures in organizations are vast, with different organizations adopting their own type of culture. The examples of culture include; club cultures, where employees of the organization are assisted to fit into the culture. This is the most common type adopted by most organizations. There is also the academy culture, where the organization keeps its most skilled employees. The skills are developed by the company and an example of the organization that mostly uses this culture is the large corporations like the Southwest Airlines. The base team culture is designed to maintain high skilled employees, as these employees have great skills and can work for many other organizations. Other organizations have cultures that are highly discouraged, like the fortress culture, where employees hardly know their fate, and can be laid off any time. These organizations often undergo changes through reorganization, and only the specialized skilled people have chances for positions in the organization. Despite these many types of the cultures, management should ensure culture that is reputable, and

Quality, how does Boeing establish and maintain quality? Previously we discussed leadership development; in nearly the same process of development, Boeing's leaders take their acquired knowledge and skills and pass it on to their employees. Through this continual cycle of education allows Boeing to maintain a competitive advantage. Another of Boeing's core values is safety.

Leadership at Southwest has influenced the success of the company immensely. The company sets a tone of having fun and being casual while still fulfilling obligations and accomplishing tasks. Southwest airlines encouraged employees to implement honor in order to put their customers at ease, attempting to make traveling an enjoyable experience.This attitude is critical to their continued success. The company has implemented Ten Organizational Relationships in order to generate extraordinary employee performance. The summation of all relationships combined is greater than the individual parts, as each part reinforces one another.