Southwest Airline in 2008

STRATEGY MBL 915P

Southwest Airlines in 2008: Culture, Values and Operating Practices

Repeater Assignment 2

By : Refiloe Mokebe (72542683)

9/6/2011

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Question 1 – What is impressive about South West? 3

Question 2 – Benchmarking against the best practices 4

Question 3 – Key drivers for low cost / no frills strategy 6

Question 4 - What are the key elements of Southwest’s culture? 9

Question 5 - What grade would you give Southwest management? 13

Question 6 - What problems or weaknesses do you see at Southwest Airlines? 15

Question 7 - What recommendations would you make to Gary Kelly? 16

List of References 17

Introduction

The objective of this assignment is to apply analytical methods on how Southwest Airlines strategy is executed. Various Strategic models will be used in analyzing how Southwest Airlines is applying and executing their strategy.

In late 1966, Rollin King, a San Antonio entrepreneur who owned a small commuter air service, marched into Herb Kelleher’s law office with a plan to start a low cost/ low-fare airline that would shuttle passengers between San Antonio, Dallas and Houston.

Southwest Airlines was founded as Air Southwest Company in 1967, it incorporated as Southwest Airlines in Texas and began customer service in 1971. The airline was founded on King’s simple business concept “attract passengers by flying convenient schedules, getting them to their destination on time with good experience and charge fares competitive to the automobile travel”.

In 1988, Southwest Airlines won the Triple Crown award which consisted of the best on-time record, best baggage handling and fewest customer complaints and they later became the Major Airline in 1990, after achieving its first billion dollar revenue mark.

Southwest Airlines was once regarded as a little more than scrappy underdog with quirky practices that flew mainly to secondary airports. They have proved that they are a major...