Southwest Airlines: a Strategy Perspective

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

The United States carries over one third of the globe’s total traffic, where Over 1.5 billion passengers fly annually. Over the past 20 years, air travel has grown at an average of about 5% per year, the reason for annual change is usually differences in economic growth, and of course other environmental factors, such as the current war. As a rule, the annual growth in air travel has been about twice the annual growth in GDP. Deregulation, liberalization, and competition have essentially altered the management strategies and practices of airlines. Productivity improvements and cost management have been two of the greatest concerns for US airlines for the past twenty years. As a whole, the airline industry must continue to improve their specialization in terms of fleet utilization, pricing and revenue management, and schedule optimization.

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 Co. is an airline company that offers air transportation services within the United States and in international markets. The company operates within the airline industry that is highly regulated, technology intensive, labor intensive, and highly competitive (Southwest Airlines, 2017). Southwest Airlines operates a service business whereby the company offers a point to point air transport service to its passengers. Other than passenger transport, the company offers transportation services for pets and unaccompanied minors. The flights offered include short haul and long haul between various destinations within the United States and internationally. In 2016, the company’s operating revenues from international operations amounted to $383 million. A unique feature of the Southwest Airlines is its cost structure whereby the company focuses on cost discipline and uses one aircraft type to minimize costs.

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.

The five universal competitive plans include overall low-cost provider strategy, broad differentiation strategy, focused low-cost strategy, focused differentiation strategy and best cost provider strategy (Bethel, 2017). Southwest Airlines popular competitive strategy is keeping customers happy by being low cost, employee driven, future-minded, and differentiated. The overall low-cost provider strategy that is being used at Southwest is a low-cost airline that focuses on no-frills service (Investopedia, 2015). Southwest prides itself on being a people-oriented airline that operates with warm and helpful employees and team members. The most valuable competitive interest has been being its intense focus on hiring the right people (Investopedia, 2015).

What are the key success factors for Southwest airlines? What are the key things it does to keep its costs lower than competitors?

Rising fuel prices has a huge impact on the airline industry. In an article published by the New York Times in 2007, oil prices were hovering ‘near $100 a barrel’ which caused the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to ‘slash’ their predicted profits for 2008 from ‘$7.8 billion to $5 billion’ (Clark, 2007). In 2008 high fuel prices were ‘dominant factor’ in the losses that faced the industry, and continued to same effect in 2009 (Dunn, 2009). Diagram 2 shows how fuel price has increased and fallen over the last 5 years.

Economic, social-cultural, and technological forces are the external macro-environmental factors Southwest Airlines should be most concerned with. Weak economic growth reduces the purchasing power of an airline’s target market. Southwest, known for being a leader in low cost airline, provides flights at a higher frequency and capacity to attain profit. However, the company experienced increasing overhead through the lapse of long-standing fuel contracts, which previously helped provide a competitive advantage. This factor is also amplified by the growth the company experienced with success. Southwest is the fourth largest airline and has seen fuel cost skyrocket from 29 percent to 35 percent over a seven-year period.

Overall, Southwest Airlines stays ahead of the curve in the airline industry and works very hard to do so. Their convenience, customer service and prices cannot be matched by other airlines and they focus on staying ahead of the competition.

The JPDO (Joint Planning and Development Office) has been setup to facilitate the development of NextGen. Apart from that, the tracking system has been updated and routes have been improved significantly. Airline forecasting and algorithms have allowed improvements in prices and costs for airlines in the industry. The average age of an aircraft in the industry is around 13 years. The market is expected to grow and revenues are likely to increase. HOW SOUTHWEST SHOULD CONFRONT THESE THREATS

Southwest Airlines is excellent in planning out their long-term goals. The above SWOT analysis proved that the company is successfully carrying out the cost leadership strategy to manipulate their competitors and boost up their company. Their mission in providing Low Fare cost is one of the best strategy that they can have to increase their market share, but not just that it also put a significant increase in the demand of air travel. Southwest Airline rapid rewards program is brilliant, so they should continue and expand it even more.

The Airline industry has experienced continual problems with rising costs with both fuel and maintenance which has caused them to increase their fees to the consumers to pay for those rising costs. This paper will help explain what an airline such as Delta does to help alleviate such costs without forcing its consumers to flip the bill through high fees that consist of tickets, baggage fees and food. The costs of doing business in aviation today have spiraled out of control making it very expensive for both airlines and the

This proposal addresses the needed steps to be taken in order for Southwest Airlines to see continued growth in the airline industry. Southwest Airlines has been able to remain one of the most profitable airlines in the industry for an extended period of time. Even with the hindrance of the 2001 terrorist attacks involving airplanes and the U.S recession of 2008, Southwest has continued to see strong revenue growth. Meanwhile, other companies were experiencing major losses and in some cases folding. Southwest Airlines has capitalized on the company’s strength of being the top low cost