One of the articles we read for class last week talked about how Southwest Airlines was the only airline that did not lay employees off in the aftermath of September 11th, and perhaps not coincidentally, they were also the only airline that did not post losses in the next few years. There are a number of factors that contribute to this, some of which we can directly relate to the Organizational Theory of the company. First, they were able to lock in their fuel prices as very low rates in 2002, so when fuel prices shot up in 2003 and 2004, Southwest was spending much less than every other competitor. Second, as the article mentioned, layoffs foster an unhealthy work environment as employees become introverted and work only to keep their jobs, not to make it better. If you've ever flown on Southwest, you can see that the employees really seem to love their jobs. While Southwest's policies on seating and such are controversial to some (I have friends that refuse to fly it because of the "no assigned seats" policy), they don't charge for bags or in-flight beverages, which I believe makes them unique in the current airline market. Personally, I love to fly Southwest because of the attitude on their flights, and the no nonsense approach they have.
If you've seen a commercial for Southwest that features their employees, you can see that there appears to be genuine enjoyment in the work their employees do. Naturally, some people may think "It's a commercial, they're acting", but from the many times I've flown Southwest, I've never come across anyone who acts in any other way that what you see on television. To contrast that, I flew home from Chicago last year on United after flying out on Southwest, and my experience was decidedly less enjoyable.
This is a link to an outside source (not grade hunting, what? nooo) that has a survey from Wednesday's USA Today where frequent flyers ranked Southwest and JetBlue above the "major" airlines in terms of service and quality, hopefully lending a bit of support to the argument I've been making here for the last 350 words.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-09-15-1Aairlinecomplaints15_ST_N.htm
Tom
Tom, I share similar perspective towards Southwest as you do! The management at Southwest has done a great job in keeping the company afloat, in good times and bad, and gaining more and more market share over the years. It is also surprising that none of the other "big" airline companies saw Southwest coming from behind and taking their share of the market pie. Also, it is incredible to see in today's business world that Southwest has become more of an employees' company rather than the managament's company. In my opinion, this just takes the work motivation to a whole new level.
ReplyDeleteI have always had great experience flying in Southwest; not so much when I travelled with United this past summer from Manchester, England to New York (...and the flight was 7 hrs long...I guess u can imazing what I went through).