South west airline is by all accounts American’s best managed airline. From this humble beginning, Southwest has become the United States major short-haul, low-fare, high-frequency, point-to-point carrier. It has one of the lowest operating cost structures in the domestic airline industry, enabling it to offer the lowest and simplest fares while remaining profitable. It has been started way back in 1967 called Air Southwest Co. by Rollin king, a San Antonio entrepreneur who owned a small commuter air service and his bankers John Parker.
Seeing the increasing potential of intrastate air travel, they decided to provide the best service with lowest fares to short haul, frequent flying and point-to-point travelers. Herb Kelleher, who was the legal advisor of King’s air service, later joined them. The trio decided to commence their operations in the state of Texas connecting Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. These cities are growing rapidly and were too far apart for travelers to travel conveniently by rail or road.
Having decided on the cities to operate, Kelleher applied for incorporation of the company in March 1967. About a year, SW received permission from the Texas Aeronautics commission (TAC) to operate across the three cities. In 1974, SW moved its entire Houston services to Hobby. Next in 1974, SW continued operations from Dallas Love field. In 1979, after Write Amendment, SW adopted another strategy to operate from Dallas Love field and destinations outside five states.
In 1984, SW bought Muse air for $ 3 mm from Trans star’s operations. During the period 1990-94 when airlines facing tough time Kelleher’s philosophy of managing well in good times to be ready for bad times seemed to have paid off. In 1993, SW enters Baltimore and had established a strong financial track record. At the time, airline served most markets in the South West as well as for north as Chicago and as Far East as Cleveland. During 1994, SW outlasted the competition posed by its competitors like continental, united etc.
in 1999, SW began concentrating on the East coast of U. S. , and it began 12 flights a day to four cities from Mac Arthur Airport in long island near New York City. In September 1999 SW announced 15 new flights, 10 of which were non-stop flights, the rest one-stop. In 2003, SW announced that its current and future fleet of Boeing 737-700s would be out fitted with fuel saving, performance-enhancing blended winglets. Despite all challenges, SW reported profits in 2007.
This Fortune 500 Company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Southwest Airlines is listed in the New York Stock Exchange, under the trading symbol LUV. The mission statement of SW airlines is as follows: “Southwest Airline is dedicated to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride and company spirit”. “We are committed to provide our employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth.
Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude with in the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer” (accessed from the website www. southwest. com). SW airlines mission statement has always governed the way they conducted their business. It highlights their desire to serve customers and find out their concerns when airlines make any service related decisions.