Southwest Airlines is an airline company headed by Gary Kelly who is the CEO, it has over 57000 employees and serves more than 120 million customers in a year ("Southwest Airlines", 2018) . It’s a very competitive company that offers low fare prices to increase customers, a strategy that has been working well for the company. Their returns normally range in between $9.3 billion and $1.7 billion which is a good performance and desirable returns for the shareholders. This company was started in 1967 and it has grown tremendously over the years increasing the quality services and introducing new ones that attract more customers.
SWOT analysis of Southwest Airlines identifies some of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. To begin with the strengths of the company I would say these are the areas that the company has highly invested on and they include; its culture, highly qualified employees and the company policies. Southwest company has a unique company that other companies imitate but it cannot be duplicated. The company has natured a culture of love and respect amongst its employees which is based on three factors; appreciation, celebration, and recognition ("Southwest Airlines", 2018) . They also have a Culture Services Department that handles matters of culture within the organization.
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The second strength is the skilled employees that the company employees. To make this successful, the company uses the Campus Reach program that seeks to identify its potential future employees while still in college and train them with the skills and values preferred by the organization. This builds confidence in the employees and prepares them adequately for work after they are done with school. The last strength is the policies used by the company. They have the pet policy that allows pets such as dogs and cats aboard, unaccompanied minors policy allows underage passengers to travel unaccompanied, Rapid Rewards frequent flyer program which helps its members earn points every time they travel based on the class and the fares. The points can be redeemed to get a seat instead of paying for flight fares.
Some of the weaknesses that the company faces are poor customer services, limited destinations and routes, and poor facilities. The customers complain about the customer services provided saying that they are not prompt. Solving customer issues takes longer than expected. Secondly, the organization has not been able to expand its services to some of the destinations and customers are forced to go for other company options, this includes the routes that the company flies. Lastly, the organization has not invested in quality facilities compared to other competing airlines.
The opportunities available for Southwest Airline include; market niche, expansion of services offered and benefits offered to employees. There’s is a larger market niche that the organization has not yet entered into that is less competitive. The organization can still increase the services offered, for instance, cargo Shipping can be expanded to international destinations and not within the U.S only ("Southwest Airlines", 2018) . Lastly, employees can be provided with free or cheaper medical cover as a way of motivation.
This company is faced by some threats including government policies, insecurity issues and competition from other major airline companies. Though the organization has its own functional policies in place, they are regulated by government policies thus limiting its capability to make other policies. Insecurity is an issue that’s faced by almost all airlines and southwest is not an exception. Lastly, this industry is very competitive and Southwest Airlines faces competition from other companies such as SkyWest Airline ("Southwest Airlines", 2018) .
Job available for business major students: https://careers.southwestair.com/job/25207/Strategy-Consultant
Reference
Southwest Airlines. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/index.html
