Southwest Airlines in Baltimore – Case Solution

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Southwest Airlines in Baltimore Case Answers

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Q1) How does Southwest Airlines compete? What are the advantages relative to other airlines?

Southwest Airlines is one of the most famous low-cost air carrier companies. The company has earned its fame by providing excellent customer service at extremely low prices. They have also won several acclamations and awards for their service. They have been able to stand out amongst their competitors based on several competitive advantages they created for themselves.

An analysis of the core competencies of Southwest Airlines is shown diagrammatically below by classifying various advantages of Southwest Airlines into Porter’s three strategies to achieve competitive advantage.

Q2) The plane turnaround process requires coordination among 12 functional groups at SWA. Evaluate the plane turnaround process at Baltimore resource utilization, capacity, bottlenecks, information flow, etc. How is the process working?

A quick turnaround is a critical factor for Southwest Airlines in Baltimore as they operate more than 100 flights on just 18 gates. So, any delay in turnover would have a ripple effect on all the flights. The turnaround requires close and effective coordination between twelve different groups.

For other airlines, these twelve groups generally do not get along with each other. Still, Southwest has identified this problem beforehand, and they take active measures to make sure that these groups communicate efficiently and have warm relationships.

Southwest Airlines operates on a decentralized model of working. This model means that the operator at the airport is the decision-making personnel rather than someone sitting miles away in a headquarters. The infrastructure at airports is made such that it is ergonomically possible for the operator to see a few gates and have details of all the gates on the left and right-hand side screens.

Extensive training and experience on behalf of ramp supervisors, offloaders, and several operation agents has made it possible for Southwest to turn off flights in a period as short as 12-15 minutes. However, Southwest Airlines faces a shortage of employees. Hence, existing employees have to work overtime, as far as 16 hours a day.

This work schedule leads to a loss of employee motivation, and achieving such tight turnarounds becomes prone to mistakes with such conditions. The key factors involved in the turnaround are as follows:

Information: The communications and booking system – Operations Terminal Information System (OTIS) was the main source of information that was developed internally for tracking flight details. OTIS had extensive information on the number of passengers and crew members, weather forecasts, and delay time, along with the reasons for the delay.

In addition to this, information about gate assignments arrival, and departure times was made available through the Flight Information Display System (FIDS), which was updated by coordinators at the airport. These systems were functional but not utilized to their full potential.

Still, several manual forms had to be filled, which led to a delay in entering Information in OTIS and became a potential source for miscommunication and error.

Capacity: Southwest Airlines had access to 16 gates at Baltimore airport. They flew more than 100 flights in a day. Moreover, there was a…