The Success of the Southwest Marketing Strategy

The Success of the Southwest Airlines Marketing Strategy

Southwest Airlines is the fourth largest major airline in the United States , flying more than 64 million passengers every year to 58 cities from the southwest and beyond . The company offers low fares to passengers , thereby achieving a huge market share in the airline industry . Although Southwest Airlines could be compared to Walmart in terms of its pricing strategy , the airline has not reached Walmart 's success yet , perhaps because it does not fly everywhere in the world All the same , the airline wins

award after award for finest quality in many departments , including Best On-Time Record , Best Baggage Handling and Fewest Customer Complaints (Barlow Southwest Airlines ' Anne Murray

Southwest Airlines has relied on highly successful marketing strategies through its 30 years old career . The company has partnered with highly lucrative organizations such as the NBA , with which it launched the Slam Dunk One aircraft in the year 2005 ( Southwest Airlines launches Slam Dunk One , an NBA-themed aircraft . What is more , the company 's media campaigns to target the minorities , such as the African Americans and the Hispanics - have proved to be highly successful (Churchill

The airline has about eighty percent of its employees in unions This is the highest rate of union membership among the top ten U .S airlines . Southwest Airlines also happens to be one of the top ten domestic carriers that has issued stock options to employees as part of standard compensation packages (Karrh . By making its employees satisfied thus , and an essential part of

THE SUCCESS OF THE SOUTHWEST AIRLINES MARKETING STRATEGY

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business success , the airline hopes to make them more motivated than usual to serve consumers well

The company has also launched a website to increase its revenue through offline marketing . Meredith Levinson reported on the success of Southwest Airlines ' new strategy in the year 2001 , following the September 11 attacks

Since the company first started selling tickets online in 1996 Southwest has launched a

variety of campaigns to motivate people to buy tickets via the site For example , the airline

sends a weekly electronic newsletter to 3 .3 million subscribers that includes special offers

available exclusively through Southwest .com . These incentives will be even more crucial to

the airlines ' survival in this tough economy and as Americans think twice about flying . While

other airlines suspended Internet-only deals after the Sept . 11 attacks , Southwest continued to

offer them .Passenger revenues generated through the website soared from 8 percent in 1998 to 19

percent in 1999 . Last year , Southwest .com generated 31 percent of the company 's passenger

revenues - or 1 .7 billion . Not bad considering Southwest initially invested 5 million to

launch the site and spends 21 million a year to maintain it

As a matter of fact , Southwest Airlines made 241 million in profit and 5 .5 billion in sales in the year 2002 , when all major airlines were incurring significant losses following the terrorist attacks on the American soil . According to E...