Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines is currently the fourth largest airline in the United States. It flies over 64 million passengers a year, which makes 2,700 passengers a day, traveling to 58 cities. Southwest is the only major carrier to remain profitable in every quarter since 9/11, opposed to many other companies who have declared bankruptcy. It is an influential company that has greatly contributed to the development of the commercial airline industry.

Currently, Southwest Airlines Company achieved the higher net income in 2013 and widened its field of operations by the integration with AirTran Airways. It seems Southwest’s business is going pretty well. However, there are numerous problems from competitors who will cause negative effect on Southwest’ market leader position and market shares. This marketing plan will make a careful analysis of the current activities of Southwest Airlines Company, and then this marketing plan will create how the company develop Southwest’s market leadership and higher market shares within 5years.

Southwest Airlines has been making changes over the past few years that helped them become the largest low-cost carrier in the United States. Most other airlines have been struggling to make it through this economy, but Southwest has found a way to thrive. The airline has dropped their prices and eliminated fees for extras that have allowed them to fill up most flights. One cost they continue to struggle with is offsetting the increasing fuel prices. This has caused some airlines to merge or sell the company to competitors.

Over 35 years ago, Rollin King and Herb Kelleher decided to create a different type of airline. They began with the simple notion: If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time and at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline. They were right (Southwest Airlines, 2004)!

Overall, the five forces model suggests that the overall intensity of competition in the airline industry is likely to be severe. Back in the early 1980 's competition was very intense. During the late 1980 's the monopolization of major routes by a few major carriers, the limited availability of free landing spots at major hubs and the emergence of limited brand loyalty and tacit price agreements have all helped reduce the intensity of competition. However, as already mentioned, slumping demand in the early 1990 's plunged the industry once more into a severe price war. Airline travel is a commodity-type product, with limited potential for differentiation.

Southwest’s primary competitors are JetBlue and Spirit Airlines. These two airlines, like Southwest, focus on innovation and low airfare costs. Among the largest airlines are American, Delta, and United. However, these mainline carriers are far from posing any major threat to Southwest. (Coulter, pg 253)

Southwest spearheaded “Shuttle By United” by emphasizing the particularly city-pairs where they competed directly. Additionally, Southwest heavily promoted their 21-day advance fares and other discounts. Southwest’s average fare for the intra-California market decreased from $45.00 in the third quarter of 1994 to $44.00 in the fourth quarter of 1994 and into early January 1995. The Oakland-Seattle route was $51.00, down from $60.00 in the third quarter of 1994. Southwest vice president of marketing and sales estimated the average passenger fare for “Shuttle By United” was roughly 5-10 percent higher in the nine markets it competed directly with Southwest and about $20.00 higher than the average Southwest fare in the markets it did not compete directly.

Southwest's greatest strength is its ranking number one in US domestic airlines, in terms of number of passengers/load factor as can be seen from Exibit 1 C with southwest topping the chart as compared to other airlines. American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, was on the brink of bankruptcy despite $1.8 billion .Delta, with combined losses of $8.5 billion from 2001 to 2004, was almost bankrupt. ATA Airlines, the tenth largest carrier in the United States, filed for bankruptcy in 2004. In general Us Airline labor unions issues of wage reductions, pension cutbacks, and job uncertainty were happening. In 2004, Southwest was recorded by the bureau's statistics as serving an amazing

Southwest has been projected as a low-cost airline and has been a source of inspiration to other low-cost airlines because of its successful pricing strategies. The company has targeted middle-class society as its potential customers and has adopted variable-price as another pricing strategy. The company has also introduced innovative programs and offer incentives along with discounts to attract a larger customer base under its variable cost pricing strategy (Bhasin,

Southwest Airlines clearly outlines their values in their corporate mission statement: 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 (www.southwest.com). This mission both describes the company 's approach to its workforce, and the customer at large. Rather than focusing on the financial side of the business, Southwest has been successful in creating an organization centered in fostering positive relationships with its employees and customers. The airline is also known for its ‘zany corporate culture ',

Strengths 1. Strong market position and wide global presence enhances the market share Delta has a strong market position in the airline industry worldwide. The company serves more than 180 million customers annually. It is one of the largest and admired airlines in the world. For example, in 2017, Delta was named to Fortune magazine’s top 50 World’s

Delta airlines is the oldest operating airline in the United States, one of the five remaining legacy carriers, and a founding member of the SkyTeam airline alliance. It was founded as a crop dusting service company in 1924 in Macon, Georgia. Since its early years Delta airlines has gone through all the regulation changes from early years of commercial aviation to recent years, and has been highly influenced by the government laws.

At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based

According to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, Southwest Airlines is currently the third largest airline in the world, measured by the number of passengers carried. Total number of passengers that were carried in the year 2005 amounted to 77.7 million. They are behind American Airlines and Delta Air Lines. After the tragic September 11th incident, Southwest airlines remains as one of the only major airlines that are still profitable. After the September 11th attacks, Southwest Airline's 6 biggest competitors grounded 240 planes and laid off 70,000 people. Southwest kept every single person and plane flying. In fact, they have been so successful, even other airlines have started to copy their practices. One of the biggest reasons

happen with no advanced notice in most cases. While these are the “worst case scenarios” for