Southwest

Is there anything that you find particularly impressive about Southwest Airlines? Transported more passengers from U. S airports to U. S destinations than any other airline Consistently profitable- had reported a profit every year since 1972 Became a major competitive force in domestic segment 2. What grade would you give Southwest management for the Job it has done in crafting the company’s strategy?

What is it that you like or dislike about the strategy? Does Southwest have a winning strategy? Southwest deserves an A for their strategy to keep their fairs at low cost and making themselves different with better customer services than their rivals to become a profitable airline.

Their continuous capability of creating a profit year after year despite a downturn in the economy showed their ability to succeed by their winning strategy.

Due to their unique strategy of low operating costs, low fares, customer pleasing services and their promise to keep their costs the lowest across the industry s the most appealing part of their strategy. Their positive corporate culture is reflected through their customer service and prices. 3. What are the key policies, procedures, operating practices, and core values underlying Southwest’s efforts to Implement and execute its low-cost/no frills strategy? Southwest low-cost and no frills strategy makes travel more affordable.

The fares are presented simply and easy to access on their website.

The lowest fares were nonrefundable but could be applied to future travel on Southwest Airlines where heir many other competitors charged customers between $100-175 dollars for flight changes. Biggest advantage that Southwest offers is the ‘Bags Fly Free’, which allowed for bags to fly free with no additional costs. They also initiated special far promotions “hen advance reservations were weak to fill up planes. This strategy combined with the ‘Bags Fly Free resulted in Southwest having record load factoring or filling up all seats on aircrafts.

Other ways of execution of their low-cost/no frills strategy include: The company operates on only one type of aircraft (Boeing 737) to minimize the size of spare parts inventories, simplify training of maintenance and repair, and improve proficiency and speed of routines. 2. Southwest was the first major airline to introduce tickets travel and allowed customers to make reservations and buy tickets online. 3. They used medium sized, less congested airports instead of major cities which allowed them to produce better than average on time performance and reduce fuel costs with planes sitting in line on crowded runways.

. Southwest’s mint to point scheduling to tilling was more cost efficient than the nub and spoke system used by rivals in the industry. 5. Most importantly, Southwest continued to stick to their value of being able to offer customers the lowest prices available and Nile still offering the best service among competitors. 5. What weaknesses or problems do you see at Southwest Airlines as of mid-2010? (oh can determine an increase of involuntary denied boarding per 10,000 passengers