Southwest Airlines is the fifth largest airline in the United States. It is operating more than 2,100 flights per day and carrying over 44 million passengers a year to 50 different cities all over the United States (Cohan, 2003). Southwest is very well known for its best on-time record, best baggage handling, and gets the least customer complaints in the airline industry.
When Southwest Airline uses the word "love" or "luv" as a marketing approach they are not talking about what most customers think. They are describing where SWA is based. SWA is based in Dallas at Love Field. SWA says that they are spreading love to other cities whenever a plane leaves Dallas. Most customers would think they were trying to get the point of courteous employees across. This airline has very courteous employees, but that is not what they are trying to get across.
The airline has won the airline industry's Triple Crown award for Best Airline continuously for five times from 1992-96.
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft parked on...
Juan Trippe. De :en:Image:Tran12G7.jpg - Library o...
English: Airline Ticket Receipt of Southwest Airli...The airline is also famous for its innovative discount and convenience packages introduced by it from time to time including the frequent flyer program, fun fares, same-day airfreight delivery service etc. It is the only airline in the United States, which is continuously making profits since 1973 and has gained in terms of stock value to a level of about 500% since 1990. Profit margin of the company is the highest in the airline industry.
The above-mentioned facts raise a question in the minds of the reader as to what made Southwest Airline such a huge success. In other words, what factors contributed to airline's success. The primary success factor has been airline's business organizational plan. The management of Southwest has based its strategies on a very simple principle. They believe that if they...