Southwest Airlines
- In 68, Herbert D. Kelleher and a group of investors put up $560 000 to found Southwest (106, 1)
- In 78, he was named Chairman with no managerial experience and in 81; he became CEO (106, 2)
- Southwest initiated cut throat price competition while being able to achieve costs savings that no other airline could (107, 5)
-They faced legal battles, such as Dallas and Love Field (107, 6) but were able to reach a compromise, known as the Wright Amendment, which allowed flights from Love field to 4 states contiguous to Texas. This forced onto Southwest a key ingredient of their success: strategy of short flights (107, 6)
-In the 80s, Southwest experienced success with passenger traffic increasing, below average operation costs and greater revenues and profits. Kelleher took a conservative approach to expansion by financing it mostly from internal funds (108, 2)
-In 90, Southwest entered the populated California market (109, 3). They implemented low fares and frequent flights which resulted in an increase of total air traffic and caused the competition to suffer (111, 2)
-In 91, the company received numerous requests for their service in many cities (108, 7). This depicts Southwest's growth increasingly favourable competitive position.
- By 93, Southwest spread to 34 cities in 15 states. It had 141 planes (all the same) that concentrated on flying a large number of passengers directly form city to city at high frequency, low fares with minimal operating costs (108, 4)
-The company's success was the result of key factors such as cost containment, employee commitment and Conservative Growth (112, 1)
-Cost containment was the result of utilization of a single aircraft, Boeing 737s, low costs of training, maintenance and inventory, fastest turnaround time than any other company, offering peanuts and drinks but no meals, not assigning seats...
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