We Have Our Best Days Before Us: Southwest Airlines Girds for a Challenging Year
2009; De Gruyter; Volume: 46; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0002-2543
Autores Tópico(s)Transport and Economic Policies
ResumoIn 2009, for the first time in its history, Southwest Airlines (SWA) is shrinking. It is reducing seat miles by four percent compared to 2008. It has grown every year since its founding in 1971. It is not parking any aircraft, but it is returning some older models and has postponed deliveries of six 737-700s due to arrive in 2010 and three more in 2011. Using new scheduling tools, it has reduced the number of flights by about 10 percent. It is also upgrading equipment on its 737s, giving them the capability of eventually using Required Navigation Performance. Southwest is also experimenting with on-board Wi-Fi. It is adding destinations to busy sections of the country, such as Boston’s Logan Airport and New York LaGuardia and has plans to start codeshares with Canada’s WestJet and Mexico’s Volaris in 2010. Despite the downturn in the industry overall, Southwest still made a profit. It is the only investment-grade, dividend-paying major airline in North America. Because of its large size, with some 3,200 daily flights on roughly 439 nonstop city-pairs to 65 domestic destinations, the expansions in Boston and New York aren’t as risky. After a LaGuardia codeshare with ATA ended when ATA failed, Southwest decided to enter the airport itself. With Logan, Southwest had already served nearby Providence for many years, giving it a presence in the regional market. Southwest remains primarily a point-to-point carrier with about 78 percent of its customers flying nonstop in 2008. Additional details are given on its fare structure and techniques that permit it to keep costs the lowest in the business.
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