Abstract

Southwest Airlines (Southwest) is the fourth largest airline in the USA in terms of domestic customers carried. Southwest has enjoyed the best customer complaint record among all US airlines for the last 12 years. The company has seen 30 straight profitable years. In 2003, Southwest was named by Fortune as one of the most admired companies in the US. Southwest’s success is largely due to the way it has managed its operations and cut costs in various ways. These include use of smaller airports, one type of plane, no frills service, point-to-point flights and quick turnaround of aircraft. This case can be used to teach how effective operations management leads to sustainable cost leadership. Southwest Airlines, Operations Management, Cost Leadership

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• est Airlines, Operations Management, Cost Leadership

Keywords

Southwest, Quick turnaround, Operations management, Low cost airline, Automated ticketing, Short-haul flight, Point-to-point, Quick boarding, Airlines, Cost leadership, Operations, No-frills service, One type of flight, Low turnaround time