Southwest Airlines Essay Research Paper Whileflying home

Southwest Airlines Essay, Research Paper

While

flying home to Texas last summer with Southwest Airlines, I had the most fun and

unique experience with an airline that I could ever remember. It all started out

quite oddly enough in the lobby just before takeoff. As I was checking in at the

ticket counter, the representative asked me if I wanted to play a game that

could get me free round trip tickets. "Sure, who wouldn’t," I

exclaimed. As she gave me my boarding pass she said, "Great, how many holes

do you have in your socks." Initially caught off guard, I responded,

"Excuse me!" "The free tickets are being given to the customer

who has the most holes in their socks," she explained with a perky smile.

It was just my luck that I was wearing sandals. I told her, "Too bad your

not checking underwear, because I’m sure I could be in the running for some free

tickets with that sort of game." The remainder of the flight was filled

with jokes and gags yet quality service from the pilot to the flight attendants.

I can remember our flight attendant, dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and tennis

shoes along with the rest of the staff, enhanced the safety announcements with

the remark: "There may be fifty ways to leave your lover, but there are

only six ways to leave this aircraft." Having fun is obviously a big part

of Southwest Airlines formula to success. It all starts from the top with their

childish yet brilliant boss Herb Kelleher. Kelleher, the company’s CEO, is the

"nut" behind these shenanigans. This chain-smoking, Wild

Turkey-drinking Texas transplant from New Jersey has: . Dressed for employee

celebrations as Roy Orbison, Elvis, a medieval knight and a teapot; . Passed

out the peanuts himself on board his orange and brown 737s . In front of

cheering employees, arm-wrestled another CEO for the right to use the slogan

"Plane Smart." (He got whipped, but he used the slogan anyway.) This

man, once called "The High Priest of Ha Ha" by Fortune Magazine firmly

believes: "If you feel real good about coming to work, if you feel real

good about what you’re doing, if you feel you are doing something for a

meaningful cause and you’re having fun while you’re doing it, then you look

forward to coming to work. You don’t succumb to stress as easily and you

cooperate with other people more quickly and more easily. If you have a sense of

humor . . . it tends to not allow you to make mountains out of molehills."

1 Kelleher, known as Herb to the troops and his partners, reinvented air travel

twenty-five years ago with its low fares and zany irreverent style. This paper

will give a historical overview of the company, discuss the ingredients to the

company success, offer some financial strengths and present a final conclusion.

Section I: Southwest’s History Twenty-seven years ago, Rollin King, a San

Antonio entrepreneur who owned a small commuter air service, and Kelleher, who

was a lawyer at the time, got together and decided to start a different kind of

airline. They began with one simple notion. If you get your passengers to their

destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares,

and make certain they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline.

And you know what. They were right. Within those 27 years, Southwest Airlines

became the fifth largest major airline in America. Today, they have flown over

50 million passengers a year to 54 cities all over the southwest and beyond.

They do it over 2,300 times a day with over 267 of the newest jets in the nation

and fly only one type aircraft; the B-737. The average age of their fleet is

only 8.4 years and they own over sixty percent of them. In May 1988, they were

the first airline to win the coveted U.S. Department of Transportation Triple

Crown for a month – Best On-time Record, Best Baggage Handling, and Fewest

Customer Complaints. Since then, they’ve won it thirty-one times, as well as

five annual Triple Crowns for 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1996. They have been

an airline whose has led to the advancement of the commercial airline industry.

They were the first airline with a frequent flyer program to give credit for the

number of trips taken and not the number of miles flown. They have pioneered

senior discounts, Fun Fares, Fun Packs, a same-day air freight delivery service,

ticketless travel, and many other unique programs. 2 Here is a brief year to

year synopsis about this little upstart three-jet airline and how it got off the

ground to become one of America’s largest and best-loved commercial airlines in

history: 1971 With President Lamar Muse ( retired and seasoned industry leader)

at the helm, Southwest Airlines takes off on its maiden voyage and begins

service between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Americ

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