Southwest Airlines Strategy

Southwest Airlines Strategy:

• Southwest Airlines wanted to be friendly and to please all of its customers so it started from the theory of “luv”; a theme of love which offered “Love Machines” that wrote tickets instantly in a virtual environment, and “Love Potions” which were drinks served on the plane trip.

• Later on this theme expanded into making the trips on the planes more enjoyable; sometimes the employees played pranks, at other times they dressed up in costumes. Sometimes they painted planes; worked with customer ambassadorship; and utilized PR and marketing campaigners before setting up shop in a new town

• The other unique aspect to Southwest Airlines service was its focus on short and inexpensive trips for customers. By cutting out meals on the plane, manual loading and unloading of baggage only by Southwest Airlines staff, and providing tickets directly to the customer a lot of money could be saved so the price of each ticket would become affordable enough to be preferred over driving a car to the same destination. Because of this approach a passenger mile in 1993 was 7.3 cents.

• Fewest delays, complaints, and missed bags were some of the unique traits Southwest Airlines showed. By being so focused on internal cooperation they could accomplish many things together.

• Another cost saving benefit was multiple stops approach to flying which resembled a bus in the way that it stopped at one destination for a while so that people could get off and new people could get on to go to the next stop. This approach was not meant for people to stop and transfer to other flights, and most people got off on the first stop, but by allowing passengers to stay on to the next destination money was saved by not going through the process of checking, seating, and storing the passengers luggage.

• By utilizing mainly uncongested airports Southwest Airlines also could avoid long delays waiting in line to land, to lift off, and could avoid gate holds.

• The use of only Boeing 737 jets was another cost saving tactic. The average lifespan of a Boeing 737 Jet was 20 years, but Southwest Airlines could use it up completely in a period of seven years. It may seem like a loss of money at first consideration, but when you realize that Southwest Airlines makes almost 2.5 times more trips than another competitor in the same period, the amount of money they would make in less time is greater even if they have to buy more planes. Another benefit of only having one plane type is having mechanics only concentrated on learning one design, and not needing to move in a smaller plane if not enough passengers bought tickets.

• Even though 84% of the work force was unionized the working relations between employees was amazing and the company won the Triple Crown twelve times for their outstanding efforts and had only a 4.5% turnover rate.

• The final