The Competitve Advantage of Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines’ People Department, is touted as the crux on their groundbreaking route to success in the airline industry, and there is no question that both the ingrained and manufactured personality traits along with the both the innate and encouraged behavior patterns of Southwest employees have been an important factor in their recent success, however their true competitive advantage lies in the simplicity and streamlined nature of their product and operation.
Southwest’s original business plan to dominate in the interstate air traffic in both Texas and California was forced upon them by the actions of their competitors, and it was at this time in the company’s history that the underdog/scrapper nature of their employees, especially Herb Kelleher, really made a huge impact. Kelleher even compared himself at the time to a medieval crusader, which shows the depth of his passion and commitment to his company. When Southwest was faced with such a daunting uphill climb to be competitive in the industry, that unique spirit that is still highly-valued was crucial to their success in the introduction and growth phase of the company. That spirit provided the inspiration for extremely high levels of organizational commitment Southwest needed for employees to struggle for years to achieve even the beginnings of a successful airline. Employees felt, and still feel, like they had true ownership in the company and that their behaviors and attitude on a daily basis led to the company’s success. Though these feelings have proven to be helpful it is Southwest’s very targeted business plan and their slow expansion that is their advantage.
Southwest choose to be the best at what they were “given” in the early 1970’s, they threw everything at it with a crusader’s commitment and it worked. Then by maintaining their low cost, no frills beginnings as they unhurriedly expanded the continued underdog attitude has worked because essentially as Southwest expands they are underdogs in the markets they are joining. Their competitive advantage is their business model, a difficult one to initiate and maintain in the airline business therefore they need the unique employee spirit to implement such a difficult strategy. For example, their pilots work more hours for less pay but their commitment to making the Airline a success and the feelings generated by the organizational commitment of upper management and their colleagues make that extra work fulfilling because the pilots are conditioned to feel they themselves and their actions are crucial to Southwest’s triumph.
An analogous situation: Last year the NY Giants were facing undefeated New England in the Super Bowl. The Giants had a talented team, a good coach, but were huge underdogs, and most fans just considered the game a forgone conclusion. Like Southwest Airlines, the Giants’ head coach had a difficult and unique game plan that would take all the passion and commitment of every team member to execute, let alone produce a victory. So like Kelleher the Giants’ head coach imbued his players with that underdog spirit turning them into crusaders for a cause. The Giants’ players executed their coaches’ game plan to perfection which first leveled the playing field, and then they gave him (and each other because team members play for each other too) that extra effort inspired by his own passion which achieved the win under near impossible circumstances.
Southwest Airlines is successful because they have an excellent game plan, and they do an excellent job of teaching that game plan to their employees. Though that game plan is difficult the top management has displayed the necessary behaviors and affective attitudes to execute that game plan so that it is evident to employees and outsiders. Employees then know first hand the passion they need to display and actions they need to take to be successful in executing their task within the company’s game plan. Finally in turn those behaviors become the driving influential force from the very top of the company to the very bottom making the execution of the game plan and in turn the success of “their” airline the important shared purpose required for any organization to achieve success.