ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Organizational Change

Organizational Change

Introduction

Southwest Airlines, started by Herb Kelleher in 1971, is the fifth largest airline company in America, operating more than 2,700 flights per day and carrying over 64 million passengers a year to 58 different cities all over the United States.

In the domestic airline industry, the Southwest Airline Co. has the lowest operating cost by having only one variety of aircraft, the Boeing 737, which makes schedules, maintenance and training easier and cost effective. The airline also cuts costs of cleaning crews by not serving food on-board and having flight attendants clean the planes between the flights. The rapid succession of its flights allows Southwest to offer lower fares.

Although Southwest Airlines is very good at cutting the costs down and is a very efficient airline which has helped it to dominate its industry, there are still areas where Southwest can improve its performance.

Threats to Southwest airlines

Many low-cost airlines have approached the market, so Southwest must create and capitalize the innovative and competitive opportunities while identifying and overcoming threats.

A current threat facing Southwest and the entire industry is fuel prices. With oil selling for over 100 dollars a barrel every carrier is feeling a pinch in their bottom line. Higher oil prices affect Southwest more on average because it sells itself as a low cost airline where price is the most important decision factor.

Southwest should increase its revenue, otherwise will be out of the market soon. The innovative approach which Southwest has utilized to cut the prices and use the aircrafts for a longer period is to unload and reload the planes in 15 minutes while it takes an average of 45 minutes for other airlines. Southwest is an open-seating Airlines, so it saves time because passengers no longer have the hassle of finding their seat number. The most important thing about Southwest Airlines is its commitment in keeping its customers happy but being on-time and managing the queue.

Current Seating State

Southwest Airlines is an open seated airline and initially served the passengers on the bases of first-come-first -served but the airline has recently implemented an internet queuing system which divides the groups into three alphabetically groups and they will get the priority seating depending on their check-in time (earlier check-ins get to board earlier), to help the airline to board passengers faster.

Gray Keller, the CEO of Southwest Airlines, wishes to adopt a more successful queuing system to reduce the queuing time and at the same time brings some profit to the company.

1. Desired Situation

As Davis and Heineke (1994) say, we should divide the factors that affect customers' perceptions of queues into:

those that can be controlled by the firm

those that can partially be controlled by the firm

those that are controlled by customers

We all know that all the service companies which are in direct contact with the customers will definitely confront the queuing issue. Southwest knows that serving the customers faster and reducing the waiting period will generate satisfaction and will help the company to be one step ahead of ...