South Westenr Airline
Páginas: 6 (1484 palabras)
Publicado: 14 de octubre de 2012
ASSIGNMENT:
Diversification Strategies – South Western Airline
STUDENT:
PROFESSOR:
CLASS:
DATE:
July
Determine how Southwest Airlines’ corporate culture differs from other airlines.
One of Southwest’s major competitive strengths continues to be its low operating costs. Southwest has the lowest costs, adjusted for stage length, on a per mile basis, of all of the majorairlines. Among the factors that contribute to its low cost structure are a single aircraft type, an efficient, high-utilization, point-to-point route structure, and hardworking, innovative, and highly productive employees. The airline flies only Boeing 737’s to keep maintenance training and parts inventories low. Southwest serves no meals, only snacks, to keep overhead down. Southwest does not chargenuisance fees like penalties for changing same fare tickets. It has no assigned seats and no electronic entertainment onboard its planes. Instead, Southwest relies on highly energized and fun flight attendants to amuse passengers in flight.
Southwest does not employ the “hub and spoke” approach used by other major airlines, such as United, American, and Delta. Instead its approach is shorthaul (average flight time over around 1 hour) and point to point (e.g. Dallas to Houston, L.A. to Phoenix, Albany to Boston). Southwest pays its crews by trip and uses “second tier” airports (like Baltimore instead of Washington D.C. or Manchester N.H. and Providence, R.I. instead of Boston) with the recent exception of Philadelphia. Given the point-to-point nature of the flights, pilots andcrewmembers can sleep in their own beds at night, and as a result they are willing to earn less than their counterparts at major airlines.
Like most airlines, Southwest’s horizontally coordinated ground employees must work under tight time schedules and high stress. Contrary to its competitors, Southwest has not created a flat organization based on individual performance managed under low supervisionlike those of its competitors. These flat individual structures tend to lend themselves toward excessive finger pointing and ill will among employees. Rather Southwest Airline has created a horizontal organization based on cross-functional teams to diffuse blame, with adequate staffing to provide coaching, feedback, and learning.
Most major airlines, for example American Airlines, focusintensely on individual accountability. Negative focus (stimulus) accompanies the delays in the form of a manager who seeks to find out who caused the delay and why it occurred. The bigger the stakes, the more people involved. If a mistake causes planes to miss their intended connection in another city, then a minor mistake adds up to millions of lost dollars. If this scenario occurred inside ofAmerican Airlines, Southwest headquarters emphasizes the theme of “learning from mistakes.”
Analyze three (3) ways that Southwest’s unique culture has benefited the airline and its employees.
Southwest Airline has been status recognized by friendly service, speed, and frequent point-to-point departures, and that makes the best airline of the country. Over thirty years ago, Southwest Airlines beganas a small airline determined to keep things simple; provide its customers with the lowest fares, get them to their destinations on time and, most importantly, make sure they’re happy throughout it all. Southwest Airlines prides itself on delivering the highest quality of customer service, conveyed with a sense of warmth, friendliness and spirit. They maintain their status as one of the toplow-fare, high frequency, point-to-point American airline providers by constantly improving their customer service with perks such as senior discounts, ticketless travel, fare specials and same-day airfreight delivery service.
The company emphasizes three factors to focus on: friendly service, speed, and frequent point-to-point departures. By focusing on these factors, Southwest has been able...
Diversification Strategies – South Western Airline
STUDENT:
PROFESSOR:
CLASS:
DATE:
July
Determine how Southwest Airlines’ corporate culture differs from other airlines.
One of Southwest’s major competitive strengths continues to be its low operating costs. Southwest has the lowest costs, adjusted for stage length, on a per mile basis, of all of the majorairlines. Among the factors that contribute to its low cost structure are a single aircraft type, an efficient, high-utilization, point-to-point route structure, and hardworking, innovative, and highly productive employees. The airline flies only Boeing 737’s to keep maintenance training and parts inventories low. Southwest serves no meals, only snacks, to keep overhead down. Southwest does not chargenuisance fees like penalties for changing same fare tickets. It has no assigned seats and no electronic entertainment onboard its planes. Instead, Southwest relies on highly energized and fun flight attendants to amuse passengers in flight.
Southwest does not employ the “hub and spoke” approach used by other major airlines, such as United, American, and Delta. Instead its approach is shorthaul (average flight time over around 1 hour) and point to point (e.g. Dallas to Houston, L.A. to Phoenix, Albany to Boston). Southwest pays its crews by trip and uses “second tier” airports (like Baltimore instead of Washington D.C. or Manchester N.H. and Providence, R.I. instead of Boston) with the recent exception of Philadelphia. Given the point-to-point nature of the flights, pilots andcrewmembers can sleep in their own beds at night, and as a result they are willing to earn less than their counterparts at major airlines.
Like most airlines, Southwest’s horizontally coordinated ground employees must work under tight time schedules and high stress. Contrary to its competitors, Southwest has not created a flat organization based on individual performance managed under low supervisionlike those of its competitors. These flat individual structures tend to lend themselves toward excessive finger pointing and ill will among employees. Rather Southwest Airline has created a horizontal organization based on cross-functional teams to diffuse blame, with adequate staffing to provide coaching, feedback, and learning.
Most major airlines, for example American Airlines, focusintensely on individual accountability. Negative focus (stimulus) accompanies the delays in the form of a manager who seeks to find out who caused the delay and why it occurred. The bigger the stakes, the more people involved. If a mistake causes planes to miss their intended connection in another city, then a minor mistake adds up to millions of lost dollars. If this scenario occurred inside ofAmerican Airlines, Southwest headquarters emphasizes the theme of “learning from mistakes.”
Analyze three (3) ways that Southwest’s unique culture has benefited the airline and its employees.
Southwest Airline has been status recognized by friendly service, speed, and frequent point-to-point departures, and that makes the best airline of the country. Over thirty years ago, Southwest Airlines beganas a small airline determined to keep things simple; provide its customers with the lowest fares, get them to their destinations on time and, most importantly, make sure they’re happy throughout it all. Southwest Airlines prides itself on delivering the highest quality of customer service, conveyed with a sense of warmth, friendliness and spirit. They maintain their status as one of the toplow-fare, high frequency, point-to-point American airline providers by constantly improving their customer service with perks such as senior discounts, ticketless travel, fare specials and same-day airfreight delivery service.
The company emphasizes three factors to focus on: friendly service, speed, and frequent point-to-point departures. By focusing on these factors, Southwest has been able...
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