SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

Southwest Airlines



Southwest Airlines

Introduction (A)

Southwest has done a great job addressing the concerns of its stakeholders, what issues do you see the company needing to address in the future to retain current stakeholders or capture new ones? Southwest Airlines has created a vision that will last a long time, their passion on caring for their employees and customers with LUV speaks a million words. However, they need to do a little more to continue being successful. Southwest Airlines is currently being faced by many challenges, which includes high fuel costs, their more aggressive low-fares, competitors, and air traffic and weather delays that results to many of their customers being frustrated (Star Alliance, 2004).

The Two Companies Facing the same Issues (B)

The two companies which are facing similar problems are Continental airlines and Delta Airlines. In each of these companies as well as South west Airlines call for better strategies which are discussed as follows.

Continental airlines and Delta Airlines claims to lead the airline industry in customer service, and with innovations in technology, they have managed to use an Automated Boarding Pass which offers the customer four ways to check in at the airport (Lott, and Stalnaker, 2005). These consist of obtaining boarding passes at the curb, ticket counter, gate, or a self-service kiosk. With this new service, it has allowed for the customer service agents to spend more time satisfying the customer needs. As with any business today, the economy has forced many folks to stop traveling. This has in-turn hurt the amount of vacationing fliers with the company. With the trend of decreasing fliers, Continental airlines and Delta Airlines may be forced to make some decisions in the near future with the prices of tickets, or possible layoff's. Continental airlines and Delta airlines are looking for new opportunities with internet sales (Netessine, and Shumsky, 2005). They report that each quarter, the number of purchases over the internet continues to rise, and expect continued growth in the future.

Overview of the Issues (C)

To be able to retain current employees and capture new ones, Southwest Airlines needs to continue offering the same compensation or even better to all its employees instead of initiating lay-offs or negotiating salary cuts with their pilots and senior managers due to high fuel cost and operational expenses like most of their competitors did after 9/11 (Star Alliance, 2004).

Being the only Airliner Company that is profitable, Southwest ...