Southwest has always separated apart from the competition in a positive way, and they've leveraged those characteristics to become one of North America's largest airlines in terms of market share. Southwest Airlines Competitors and Alternatives we will look at them all in this article.

Southwest is, of course, one of those four that are notably higher than the others, accounting for around two-thirds of the market. Southwest has flights throughout the year, and none of the other airlines do this. Airlines can brag about having profited for 47 straight years. It all began in 1972, during their first full year of business.

Sadly, the end came in 2020 with the pandemic, which was difficult to avoid, therefore for today, I'd want to focus on seven of them. When discussing the growth and success of a company, it's important to distinguish the causes behind that accomplishment. Southwest Airlines' development I should point out that some of these will overlap, but I'm going to start with customer pleasure. Most businesses tend to talk about this basic notion, but it is crucial, especially in the case of airlines, which haven't had the best of luck. I'm thinking that the majority of those watching this have had a terrible experience. experience with a carrier, though not necessarily with Southwest

Southwest Airlines is constantly above the benchmark and is typically the highest-rated of all the major airlines, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which provides rankings based on surveys. Contributing to that number would be all of these customer-friendly policies. I'm talking about how you can check two bags for free or cancel your reservation just minutes before the scheduled departure time. There will be more items on my list that relate to this, but for now, I'd like to move on from customer satisfaction to employee satisfaction. Perhaps you've had a different experience, but Southwest has a reputation for having friendlier and happier employees than its competitors. And that's usually because they're happy to be there; Southwest employs over 60 000 people, 83 of whom are represented by labor unions; they're generally among the highest paid in the industry; they've never had a stroke; and as a result, they're generally pleasant to be around, contributing to the high customer satisfaction score. Okay, my third reason is a little bit of an excuse to delve a little deeper into this herb kelleher was their co-founder and long-time chairman of the board and CEO, and he's the person most responsible for establishing their business model. and a person who is just plain fun I'm a soft sell person who will kill you in 1967 if I catch you on another airline. The theory was that herb Kelleher and two other guys named rolling king and Lamar muse wanted to build an airline in Texas. The premise was that they would provide flights between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. It's also worth noting that the sector was still extensively regulated at the time, with the US government determining the routes, pricing, and everything else for flights between states.

So, if they want to be profitable, they're pretty much constrained to Texas. And this triangular concept appeared to have a lot of promise, but it turned out to be a dud. It gets a little complex after such a slow start, but they were given the go-ahead. Despite having the legal authority to fly those routes, competitor airlines have filed litigation. For the past three years, nothing has happened. Southwest Airlines has a lucky streak. Herb Keleher, who was already a practicing lawyer, took those cases all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, where they were eventually granted a favorable verdict in late 1970. They raised over a million dollars the following year by selling promissory notes, thereby financing three Boeing 737 jet planes in 1971.

They began operations by offering round-trip flights between Dallas and San Antonio and Dallas and Houston, and by the end of their first year, they were also offering flights between San Antonio and Houston, indicating that they had turned their concept into a reality. I guess you could say that they were an edgy airline, two words that aren't often heard together. They were based out of love field airport in Dallas. They still have it with their heart logo, and their stock symbol is luv since they took the word love and ran with it as their motif. But, while it may be on a smaller scale today, in the 1970s, Southwest flight attendants wore these stylish revealing costumes. The peanuts they served were called love bites, and the drinks they served were called love potions. It was mostly for businessmen flying between those cities, and the whole thing seemed a little crazy. By the early 1980s, lawsuits over hiring practices and uniform petitions had put an end to that crazy vibe. And a lot of things changed around that time. For example, in the 1970s, one of the company's other founders, Lamar Muse, left the company in 1978, and Kelleher replaced him as chairman and later became CEO, and a quick side note about the muse, he went on to start a competing airline called muse air, which was ironically bought by Southwest in 1985, renamed, and shut down a couple of years later all right there's that.

The most significant of them occurred in 1978 when Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act. Southwest had grown to a fleet of 13 737 planes that were flying various routes around Texas, and now they were finally able to expand out of the state. California became their biggest target; they started adding routes from Texas than other places, eventually entirely within the state itself and quickly became one of the largest airlines serving that area; okay let me get back to my list because it'll help put a lot of this into perspective another reason Behind their success, which you don't see from many other major airlines, is the fact that they only fly one type of plane with a few small exceptions at times. You've already heard me say how they started by financing three Boeing 737s and grew to 13 of them over the next few years, but you might be surprised to learn that they now own over 700 of that type of plane and no others to say that again in the future.

They owned 747 737s in 2019. The benefit of this is that it saves money because it simplifies everything. Because pilots fly the same planes, they don't need to be trained on other planes, and mechanics don't need to be trained on other planes. It simplifies maintenance scheduling and makes everything cheaper and easier. My next reason is what they call a point-to-point service. Most major airlines use what they call a hub and spoke model, which means they use certain airports as central hubs. This is why Southwest is far ahead of most other airlines. In the next article, we will point other some other factors of Southwest's success.

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