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Southwest Airlines Case Study

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Southwest Airlines Case Study

After the acquisition of AirTran, Southwest Airlines (SWA), a company with years of profitability in airline industry is now facing challenges in both external and internal environment. The strength of success in marketing strategy and organizational management and the threats from uncertainty environment exist at the same time. This paper is a brief analysis of the company’s strategy and estimated future performance.
External Environment
Airlines in United States present a wide variety of services based on their strategies to satisfy different needs of the leisure travelers group and business travelers group. There are three main groups of airlines, which are national airlines, regional airlines and commuter or feeder carriers. Based on the territories they serve, airlines differ in routes. The two major types are point-to-point and hub-and-spoke. Both strategies have their own inherent costs and organizational implications. An airline can provide plenty of services: while most airlines have two classes of service, there are also airlines providing services in different selected classes.
After the complete removal of government controls, airlines industry is going on a shakeout under the severe competition which is expected to last a long period. The industry is so difficult that its suppliers have high bargaining power; business requires large expenditures; and the price wars are extreme intensive. To survive and compete in this environment, the major airlines spend efforts on cost cutting. The industry is affected by the events of September 11, 2001, and the market which was just becoming confident in 2006 is brought back the bad times because of decreased demand.
Outlook
Though it faced difficulty in the last few years, the outlook of airline industry stays positive as a whole. But there are still several threats need

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