Southwest Airline Case

How has the original strategy been altered in recent years? How, if at all, have these changes affected Southwest's key success factors?

Price competition from interstate competitors was ferocious. The goal was to charge fares at all times that were below the cost of driving an automobile from one Texas city to another.

the 10-minute turnaround. In order to operate with three planes rather than four, it became even more necessary to get maximum utilization out of the fleet. As a result, Southwest made efforts to reduce the turnaround time (from arrival at the gate to push-back from the gate) to 10 minutes, barely one-fifth that of competitors. While average turnaround time increased over the years due to more seats (typically 130 per plane), higher load factors (seats filled per available seats), and the carriage of freight, it remained less than 30 minutes, about half the industry average in North America.

There was no first class, no assigned seats, no interlining (with other airlines) of bags or passengers, no code sharing (with other airlines' flights to extend routes), and no use of the popular hub-and-spoke route structure. Instead, Southwest offered low fares, frequent flights, on-time arrivals, and point-to-point service, often from airports not served by other airlines, some of which were less congested and more easily accessible to business travelers. Its strategy was fueled by the low fares that it made possible. Southwest executives regarded the private automobile, not other airlines, as its competitor.

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