Southwest Airlines and Future Growth

Paper Summary:

The paper examines the challenges facing Southwest Airlines, which include the competition from other airlines, pending negotiations with worker unions and two significant leader retirements. The paper then analyzes the strategies of other low-cost airlines, with a focus on JetBlue, to determine how Southwest Airlines can meet current and future challenges. The paper shows how Southwest Airlines must maintain not only its internal culture, but also its external relationship with current and potential customers.

Outline:
Background and Challenges: Southwest
Other Airlines and Strategies
Recommended Strategies for Southwest Airlines

From the Paper:

"Both major and low-cost airlines face significant challenges in their business world today. Not least of these is the universal horror of rising oil and gasoline prices. The major airlines particularly have attempted to mitigate this by cutting onboard features such as free meals and in-flight movies (Kerensky, 2007). Others have increased the cost of their first-class tickets in order to keep their other fares as low as possible. However, the concept of the low-cost carrier has offered increasing competition to major airlines: in addition to maintaining lower costs on their fares, they also offer passengers a level comfort they have no longer come to expect from the major carriers. Hence, according to Kerensky (2007), there has been an increasing trend in passengers preferring to use low-cost carriers to the major airlines. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bailey, Jeff (2008, Feb 12). Southwest Airlines Company. New York Times. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/southwest_airlines_company/index.html?inline=nyt-org
• Kerensky, Lauren (2007, Oct 8). World's Best Low-Cost Carriers. Forbes.com http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/09/travel-carriers-affordable-forbeslife-cx_lk_0809biztravel.html
• Tilson, Whitney (2003, Sept. 19). JetBlue's Challenges. The Motley Fool: Investing. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2003/09/19/jetblues-challenges.aspx

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