Jetblue Airlines Summary of Case

Southwest Airlines Co., established in 1971 by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher, began its operations with only three Boeing 737 aircrafts. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas(Hawkins, Misra, & Tang, 2012). Southwest is well known as one of the largest low-cost carriers. With this strategy, the company has dramatically grown up and deeply rooted in the US airline industry. Now, Southwest Airlines Co. operates 633 aircrafts to 93 domestic cities and the highest number of passengers used Southwest Airlines to fly around U.S in Jan 2014 (Hawkins, Misra, & Tang, 2012). To accomplish more than 40th consecutive years of both profitability and competitiveness, Southwest Airlines Company is constantly trying to find the routes to differentiate itself from other domestic carriers (Hawkins, Misra, & Tang, 2012).

Bargaining Power of Customers (high)- Customers has several options when it comes to flying. But the main attraction to customers are low prices and Southwest makes it known that they have some of the lowest airfares. The only way Southwest can take back the power is by offering direct flights to cities that other airliners do not offer. Besides the small occurrence of having a direct flight to a city that no other airline has, Southwest

Southwest Airlines' successful and profitable business model has been driven by several strategies: high aircraft utilization; standard fleet; charismatic leadership; low fare carrier; excellent customer service practice; attractive frequent flier program; innovative and creative marketing program; performance focused organizational culture; strategic human resources management and a lean operations.

Southwest Airlines is a major US airline established in 1967 that services a multitude of cities in all 50 states and beyond. The company is known for its outstanding quality in providing services and it 's cost effective ticket prices to its many passengers throughout the nation. This airline is based in the southwestern United States, in the city of Dallas Texas, and due to the tremendous number of airplanes that it has and the timely service that it provides to its passengers, this airline services more US passengers than any other airline. This airline also has the largest fleet of planes of any economical or low-cost airline service in the world and employees more than 45,000.

By giving low-cost tickets prices southwest airlines attract to a broad base of salaries and the best cost provider strategy. They also separate themselves from their rivals by being different, an example of a broad differentiation strategy and they have no assigned seats, no baggage fee for the first bag.

Question #1: Why do you think JetBlue became active on more social media platforms following the February 2007 incident?

Since 1973, Southwest has been profitable even year. Their strategy included many factors like offering no-frills, short-haul, high-frequency, point-to-point, and low-fair service. Using point-to-point because they acquired only one model of the plane then figured out the latest way to turn an airplane around, using less busy airports, alongside with no meals provided or assigned seating. Southwest also did not have an assigned seat for their passengers but rather given the boarding numbers at the gate eliminating the double-booked seats. Further through the case, it

Southwest Airlines Co. began its operations in 1971 and has been serving the industry for the past 43 years now (Southwest Airlines, n.d.). It is the major domestic airline, and ranked number one in 2014 by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (United States Department of Transportation, 2014). Back in 1971 the airline began its services in Texas in the cities of Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. The company has been ranked as the nation's largest low cost carrier (Mergent, 2012). It offers the lowest fares, and has the lowest cost structure in the industry.

JetBlue has been one of the most successful airlines since it first entered the industry in December of 1999. Founder, David Neeleman, set out to succeed by offering low-cost air travel in hopes of perpetuating his services to as many people as he could across the US. He was very adamant about having a very customer oriented business that catered to the needs of all. In doing so he wanted to emphatically promote his obligation to safety, caring, integrity, passion, while allowing the customers to have fun while traveling. There motto helps portray Neeleman’s belief stating “You Above All”. His primary goals had been to follow Southwest’s objectives of offering low rates to customers, focusing on customer’s needs and comforts while distinguishing itself with their amenities. Neeleman’s other goal was to establish his low-cost leadership strategy by concentrating his airline in a large popular metropolitan area that already is already correlated with high airfare (Peterson, 2004). He then began operating based out of the New York metropolitan area at John F. Kennedy International airport with his secondary locations in Washington D.C., Boston and Los Angeles.

Southwest wanted to stress the importance of low operating costs. To do this they implemented many strategies. They operated only one type of jet—Boeing 737s. This minimized their spare part inventories, cost them less to train maintenance and repair personnel. They were also the launch customer for Boeing 's 737-300, 737-500, and the 737-700 jets, and this enabled them to receive a big discount. They incorporated ticketless travel and save the

JetBlue was established in 1999, and was the third airline start-up for founder and CEO David Neeleman. Neeleman managed to gather $130 million, the most ever raised for a start-up airline, from investors that included Chase Capital and financier George Soros. With the large start-up capital he purchased new Airbus A320 jets equipped with satellite TV, a first in the industry. In 2004 the company ordered an additional 30 new A320 aircrafts from Airbus. The airlines first flight was from New York to Fort Lauderdale in 2000. During the year, the airline added nine more destinations in California, Florida, New York, Utah, and

He felt it was too easy to achieve this goal as most of the airline companies, including Southwest were operating in a mediocre fashion. Ann Rhoades, the Executive Vice president for HR, helped Neeleman to put in place a strong organizational culture. She believed that people can accomplish the extraordinary when they are given the authority and responsibility to succeed. JetBlue’s organizational structure was created based on five steps. They had strong company values and then hiring managers selected employees who mirrored the company’s values. Next, the company ensured that the company exceeded employee expectations and to listen to customers. And, finally, the company created a plan to drive excellence. The values established by JetBlue were safety, caring, integrity, fun, and passion.

Southwest was one of the most fuel sophistry airlines, but the continuing uprising fuel costs made the airline improve the fuel efficiency of its fleet by purchasing new Boeing 737-700s. They chose to purchase instead of rent to improve cash reserves and have less debt to total capitalization compared to other

I believe the situation was handled well, because after the February 14th delays, JetBlue executives developed a passenger Bill of Rights to help deal with the situation if it happens to arise again. The Bill of Rights provides real compensation for delays and cancellations, and it is believed to be stronger, deeper, and much more defined than any other customer commitments you could find in the airline industry.

Southwest Airlines was created in the late 1960’s by a businessperson Rolling King, and law school graduate Herb Kelleher, who sought a faster travel time between Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, Texas (Dess, et al., 2014, p. C137). After overcoming all of the antagonism and legal problems of many major airlines, Southwest was able to take its first flight in 1971 (Dess, et al., 2014, p.C137). With a dedication and will power to grow the company, King and Kelleher sought out ways to increase growth.