JENELLA MIKA A.

ESTRELLA
1FM-2

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
CASE STUDY #2
One night over dinner early in 1967 in San Antonio, Rollin King presented his idea
for a new airline to Herb Kelleher by drawing a triangle on a napkin and labeling the three
corners as Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. King's idea was to offer reasonably priced
nonstop service between the three cities; and as a result, Southwest Airlines was created.
Out of this initial meeting, Southwest Airlines was incorporated in Texas on March 15, 1967.
Commercial service commenced on June 18, 1971, with three Boeing 737 aircraft serving
three Texas cities—Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Southwest Airlines grew rapidly;
and on January of 1974, they carried their one-millionth customer. In the next couple of
years, several new jets and destinations were added including five new cities in 1977 alone.
By mid-1988, Southwest had expanded its service to offer almost 900 flights each day
across its route system covering 27 cities in 13 states; and by 1989, revenue had exceeded
the billion-dollar mark. Southwest won its first Triple Crown Award, based on Department
of Transportation statistics for the year 1992 ranking first in fewest customer complaints,
best on-time performance, and best baggage handling. In 1993, Southwest was named
one of the top ten best companies to work for in America—recognized for job security,
opportunities, youngest companies, strongly unionized, and where fun is a way of life. In
1994, Southwest became the first major airline to offer ticketless travel; and in 1996, it
became the first major airline to post a website with the launch of their “Home Gate” site.
In 1997, the airline ranked first on Fortune magazine's “100 Best Companies to Work For
in America” list.

Southwest topped the monthly domestic originating passenger rankings for the first
time in May 2003. In 2011, AirTran Airways became a wholly owned subsidiary of
Southwest Airlines. In 2013, Southwest launched the first Southwest service to a
destination outside the 48 contiguous states with service to San Juan, Puerto Rico. In July
2014, Southwest began its first international flights to Nassau, Bahamas; Montego Bay,
Jamaica; and Aruba. Later in the year, Southwest continued its international launch with
service to Mexico and the Dominican Republic. In 2015, Southwest's international service
grew to seven countries with new service to San Jose, Costa Rica, Puerto Vallarta,
Mexico, and Belize City, Belize. Presently in its 44th year of service, Southwest Airlines
(NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other air carriers with exemplary
customer service delivered by more than 47,000 employees to more than 100 million
customers annually. Southwest operates more than 3,600 flights a day, serving 94
destinations across the United States and six additional countries.
The mission of Southwest Airlines is “dedication to the highest quality of customer service
delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit”.

1. Suppose you have been asked to write a report for Southwest Airlines discussing
and displaying their share of the U.S. airline market. In your research, you are
able to obtain from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics the following
information on the Number of Passengers Carried in a recent year for the top
seven U.S. airlines:
Southwest Airlines — 111,498,509
Delta Air Lines — 109,827,685
United Air Lines — 82,436,921
American Airlines — 80,113,333
US Airways — 52,955,303
ExpressJet Airlines — 30,576,553
JetB1ue Airways — 27,836,405
Using at least two of the graphs and/or charts discussed in this chapter, present
your findings on these seven airlines and briefly discuss the results.
ANSWER FOR DISCUSSION NO.1
Throughout my research on the information provided to me regarding the
number of passengers carried in the last year and the general dispersion of market
share of the top seven airlines, I was able to come to various conclusions. The first
shown in the figure below shows that Southwest Airlines carried the most numbers
of passengers in a recent year, followed very closely by Delta Airlines.

Number of Passengers Carried in a Recent Year

Figure 1: Number of Passengers Carried in a Recent Year by the Top Seven Airlines
The Bar Chart above shows that Southwest Airlines barely edges out Delta Air
Lines, and the difference is barely there. The next two airlines follow distantly
behind with almost 30,000 passengers less carried in a recent year. Because the
last three of the top seven airlines carry less than 60,000 passengers, these
airlines have significantly less market share than Southwest and Delta Airlines
Below is a pie chart with the market share divided between the top seven airlines
based on the numbers provided. There are likely more airlines and passengers,
but this is only measuring the information provided to myself and the sum of all
passengers from these airlines.

Figure 2: Market Share Breakdown of the Top Seven Airlines

As you can see, Southwest Airlines takes up roughly 22% of the market
share for the information provided to me (The graph does round numbers up or
down, so this chart is not exact, but I will provide the sheets in Excel to more
accurately show the appropriate market share for each airline). That means that
almost ¼ of all passengers that were carried were carried by Southwest Airlines.
However, Delta Air Lines has the same percentage of market share, so there
should be some concerns that Southwest Airlines should be aware of. Delta Air
Lines is pretty much neck and neck with Southwest and is by all means the biggest
competitor. It also means that between Delta and Southwest, almost half of all
passengers carried in this case were carried by one of these two airlines. With that
being said, United and American Air Lines are not too far behind both Delta and
Southwest, and while it would take some future research and more data sets, this
could also be a worrying trend if these two smaller airlines take up more market
 share as years go on. In Conclusion, it looks like Southwest is a major player in
the airline industry, and a lot of passengers are carried by the organization.
However, almost just as many passengers are also carried through Delta Air Lines,
so it is something Southwest should be on the lookout for. Finally, it is important
not to ignore the smaller airlines, since these could always pick up market share
in the future or merge with other smaller airlines to combine their market shares
and make more competition for Southwest and Delta.

2. Information gleaned from budgettravel.com and SITA (Specialist in Air Transport

and IT Communications) indicates that there are at least five reasons that air
passengers' luggage is lost. These include: I.) The routing label is damaged or
lost, 2.) Lost during transfer from one plane to another, 3.) The wrong destination
code is typed at ticketing, 4.) The luggage is loaded into the wrong plane to begin
with, and 5.) The passenger forgets to pick up their Iuggage at the destination.
suppose a study of 500 pieces of lost luggage is undertaken in which
researchers are attempting to determine the main cause of luggage loss and it is
determined that 98 of the pieces were lost due to a lost or damaged routing label,
255 were lost during transfer from one plane to another, 71 were lost due to the
wrong destination code being typed at ticketing, 52 were lost because they were
loaded into the wrong plane, and 24 were lost because the passenger failed to
pick up their luggage at the destination. Use a Pareto Chart to analyze the results
of this study. Based on your chart, what would you recommend as a way to
attack the lost luggage problem?
ANSWER FOR DISCUSSION NO.2
As you can see in the pareto chart titled "Luggage Lost" below, the blue
bar represents the total number of luggage lost in every particular reason. While
the green line represents the total cumulative percentage of luggage lost
throughout the year. You can see the following in the chart below; The total
luggage lost, the total cumulative percentage that gives us the data every year
and also the reasons in every luggage lost. In order to get the cumulative
percentage, you need to get the total percentage first which you can see in the
second column. According to the given data, you can see that more than a half of
luggage is lost during transfer from one place to another. While on the other
hand, luggage that are lost or damaged in routing level, loaded into the wrong
plane, and forgotten to pick up by passengers is less than 40% of the cumulative
percentage
 RECOMMENDATION TO PREVENT LUGGAGE LOST

Base on the graph, more than a half of the luggage was lost during transferring
them from one place to another. My recommendation for those passengers that
experiences luggage lost is that should always keep their belongings where they can
maintain its security, put it nearby where they can keep a close watch. According to graph,
the major luggage lost was during the process of transferring them from one place to
another. With this regard, it gives us the speculation that it was taken by someone else.
Whatever the case is, whether it got lost or taken by someone else, they should first go
in the lost and found station to provide more assistance for the retrieval of the luggage.
Moreover, to further secure the luggage the passengers should always check their
luggage code. Check your luggage if it was loaded on the right plane and double check if
you typed the correct destination for your luggage. Lastly, they should always pay
attention to their belongings. These recommendations can help the passengers to prevent
luggage lost and also if a passenger found someone else's belongings, please take it over
the lost and found station. Keep safe everyone and have nice trip.

3. Shown here are two scatter plots of data on U.S. airlines reported in a recent
year by bga-aeroweb.com. The first scatter plot displays the number of
passengers carried annually by the top nine airlines and the number of seats per
aircraft for each airline. The second scatter plot displays the number of
passengers carried and the number of flights by the top nine airlines in a recent
year. Study the two scatter plots and comment on any insights you glean
regarding the airline industry.
ANSWER FOR DISCUSSION NO.3
As we can see at the 1st graph below that, the number of passengers is
almost as high with the seats per aircraft, On the first scatter plot it’s visual is
quite off for a definition of scatter plot graph, it’s very indecisive and confusing
because of its many outliers, but if you look closer you can see that this is a
positive scatter plot due to rises from 28000000 to 80000000. The form of the
first scatterplot is non-linear because it has messy plots and it does not follow a
straight line rather it makes a curve line. When it comes to its strength the first
graph is weak and the reason for this is that each of its plots are mostly far from
each other and it has many outliers making it hollow.

1st Graph
 And for the second scatter plot is about the passenger’s vs number of
flights, we can see in the second scatterplot how many passengers boarded and
the number of flights by the top nine airlines in a recent year. the number of
maximum passengers in a year is in the 1000000-1100000 range and the
maximum number of flights is 100000000-11000000 at first it was very confusing
but when you look closely you can see how many passengers aboard the top
nine airlines in a year and as the number of passengers increases, so does the
number of flights. The type of the second scatter plot is a positive correlation as
the passenger increases so does the flight.

2nd Graph