Federal Standards on Aviation Safety - Case Study Example

Download file to see previous pages Southwest Airlines maintains a relatively simple mission statement: “(We are) dedicated to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth…” (Swamedia.com, 2006). At Southwest Airlines, all employees are allowed to offer suggestions and express their unique opinions freely as valuable contributors to the airlines’ success (Bunz and Maes, 1998). Southwest is a people-focused organization in fulfillment of mission principles.
       Despite very recent economic trends, Southwest Airlines had experienced 17 consecutive years of profitability, with the recent decline attributed to rising oil commodity prices (Baer, 2008). Despite this recent loss which is largely-beyond the business’ ability to control effectively, the business has sustained a profitable model when other airlines could not always produce similar, consistent financial results. One particular strength of the company which contributes to this success is Southwest’s ability to maintain flexibility in order to meet customer needs. This represents the flexibility to invest millions of dollars into new landing regions at major airports, suggesting an aggressive posture in seizing more business territory to expand the firm’s reach. For instance, Southwest is currently bidding on 14 takeoff and landing areas at New York’s LaGuardia Airport as a competitive tactic to improve the company’s market share (Prada and Keaton, 2008). This is an area where Southwest currently has little reach, suggesting a positive strategic goal of expanding the business.
Competition amongst the various airline service providers in the United States is fierce, with competitors looking for the most strategic (long-term) value for different regions of the country when establishing passenger scheduling and coordination. Maintaining the cash and/or credit position to create such a sizeable presence along the East coast represents a company with an objective to gain increased market share and dominate various passenger routes with lower domestic fares. This flexibility further gives consumers options by providing them with alternative methods of reaching destinations without necessarily having to deal with connecting flights. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More