Southwest Airlines Essay

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.

The SWOT analysis is a great way for companies or organizations to determine their brand and product’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In order to more effectively determine these areas, separation of internal and external issues within the company or association is crucial.

Introduction While flying home to Texas last summer with Southwest Airlines, I had the most fun and unique experience with an airline that I could ever remember. It all started out quite oddly enough in the lobby just before takeoff. As I was checking in at the ticket counter, the representative asked me if I wanted to play a game that could get me free round trip tickets. "Sure, who wouldn't," I exclaimed. As she gave me my boarding pass she said, "Great, how many holes do you have in your socks?" Initially caught off guard, I responded, "Excuse me!" "The free tickets are being given to the customer who has the most holes in their socks," she explained with a perky smile.

If Southwest decided that they needed to increase their revenue they would have to start by raising the prices of their tickets. The need for increased revenue would need to be passed on to the consumers’. When a ticket price is higher with one airline than the other, the customer

Southwest Airlines (SWA) begins in June 18, 1971, when SWA first operated a first airline consul between Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Rollin King and Herb Kelleher are the founders of the company. The end of 1971 SWA immediately began to expand.

“A SWOT Analysis is the most used tool for audit and analysis of the overall strategic position of the business and its environment. Its principal purpose is to identify the strategies that will create a firm-specific business model. The plan aligns the organization’s resources and capabilities to the requirements of the environment in which the firm operates. The analysis is to evaluate any potential and limitations and the probable/likely opportunities and threats from the external environment. The results provide the positive and negative factors inside and outside the firm that affect the success.” A SWOT analysis is conducted to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential threats to the organization. ("SWOT

SWOT Analysis: A SWOT analysis is commonly used in marketing and business in general as a method of identifying opposition for a new venture or strategy. Short for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that may affect any new proposed actions. Here we represent our proposed venture’s SWOT analysis report.

Internal Factors: Internal factors are the factors within the company, which affects the success and operation of business. The company can control these factors. Effective internal management is the key to the successful business.

Ask people who the major United States airlines are and Delta and US Airways immediately come to mind. What might surprise you to know is that Southwest Airlines a comparatively smaller airline is able to compete with these big two and in my opinion it is the best. In order to compete at a national level Southwest Airlines reimagined the airline business model by focusing on a personalized approach toward both its employees and customers. A key component of Southwest Airlines quality management philosophy is employees first. This approach has led to the lowest employee turnover amongst US air carriers and as a result some of the best customer service in the industry.

In the opinion of Dr. Grace S. Thomson, “a heterogeneous mix of long and short-haul in very thing segments, passenger, density, and per capita income at end points gives [Southwest Airlines] competitive advantage. The way to establish a company in such a market as the airline industry would be to strategically expand in to airports with less competition. Southwest Airline capitalized on this fact to become a national airline (Keller 2008). Southwest Airlines satisfies what were once negligible markets. Southwest serves “64 cities in 411 non-stop city pairs” (Thompson 2008). Saturating these markets has allowed Southwest Airlines to expand without putting a strain on its pocket book (Keller

Southwest Airlines has effectively used a variety of promotional elements in its integrated marketing communications, making it one of America’s largest airlines with 3,300 flights a day to 72 domestic cities. Southwest Airlines has used all four possible elements of the promotion mix: advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion, but has focused primarily on advertising and public relations to add value to the product offered to customers. Its focus on advertising and public relations is directly related to its large size and it’s nationwide reach. Also, advertising and public relations are the

The goal of this paper is to explain the prominent success of Southwest Airline in the United States through a single case study analysis making use of the McKinsey’s 7-S framework. Developed in the early 1980s at the McKinsey & Company consulting firm by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, this framework looks at 7 internal factors (Structure, Strategy, Systems, Style, Staff, Skills, Super-ordinate goals) which, according to its authors, need to be aligned for an organization to be successful. In this paper, we will analyse each of its internal elements through the case study “Southwest Airlines in 2008, Culture, Values, and Operating Practices”.

Brand Identity The brand identity being conveyed by Southwest is that of a low fare and fun airline. SW encourages its staff to have fun while serving customers. An example is a flight attendant who sings the in flight instructions to passengers. Such behavior is unique to SW as British Airways Singapore Airlines and other airlines do not encourage such antics from their cabin crew. However, such behavior creates an atmosphere of fun and

SWOT analysis is a useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organization. SWOT analysis can be classified into internal and external factors affecting a company. The Strengths and Weaknesses of the SWOT analysis represent the internal factors that influence the viability of the company. While the Opportunities and Threats, on the other hand, are the external factors that may affect the company's performances. A SWOT analysis provides more understanding of the organization in relation to its internal and external environment so that manager can formulate better strategy in pursuit of its mission.

SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favourable and unfavourable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies.[1]