The Southwest Airlines Way

Manchester only has 3 million passengers per year compared to Logan’s 27 million. But we are gaining market share. Since September 11, . . . people are thinking differently about flying. . . . It’s helped us. Our traffic is actually up from a year ago, even though the industry cut flights by 20 percent. Some of our airlines have been using the cuts in flights to redeploy aircraft from other airports to here, to increase their flights from Manchester, because they see the passenger demand.

The partnership between Manchester Airport and Southwest Airlines has benefited not only these two parties, but also the other airlines that fly to Manchester. The efficient security system made possible by the part- nership has increased the attractiveness of Manchester Airport for the passengers of American, United, Continental, and all the other airlines that fly to Manchester. In this respect, there have been positive spillover effects for the industry resulting from Southwest Airlines’ practice of building partnerships with the airports where it is the dominant carrier.

Partnership Challenges

At other airports, Southwest has faced more substantial challenges in forging a partnership. Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) is one case in point. In 1993, Southwest selected BWI in Mary- land, 30 miles from Washington, D.C., as its gateway to the East Coast. Service to Cleveland and Chicago began on September 15. One year later, the airport broke ground on a $27.6 million expansion project to extend the terminal and create six more domestic gates. Southwest signed up for all of them. Through the 1990s Southwest added more cities to its nonstop service from Baltimore. After just 7 years, Southwest’s share of Baltimore passengers in 2000 reached 34 percent, displacing US Airways, the long-time leader. Baltimore had become one of Southwest’s eight “mega-stations”—so called because it offered more than 100 flight depar- tures per day. Given the continued growth in number of flights projected by management, Southwest’s Baltimore gates would reach capacity limits later in 2001. Southwest’s bag sorting area had already reached its capac- ity. In mid-2001, Baltimore directors began planning the renovation of Concourses A and B to provide more gates for the company.

Even once Southwest became the dominant carrier at Baltimore, the airport leadership responded somewhat reluctantly to Southwest’s needs

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and its desire to play a partnership role in airport operations. According to a frontline operations agent at Southwest’s Baltimore station:

This was US Airways’ territory. It’s been kind of hard to get things done here. They had friends, and as we grew, we started bumping them. Considering everything, we have a pretty good relationship with this airport.

We added more x-ray machines to improve the flow, shorten the lines. We went from four to seven machines after September 11. It was our initia- tive to get the lines down. It’s in our best interests and in the airport’s best interest too, to get the lines down.

Matt Hafner, regional director for Southwest, concurred:

It’s been tough working with this airport. We like to partner, but this one has been very political. It’s getting better now, maybe because US Airways is looking weak. But we’ve also just had our leadership [top management team of Southwest Airlines] here meeting with the head of the state DOT. I think that has helped. We are finally getting action on some things we needed last year. They weren’t used to the way we operate, coming in, needing to change things. We changed their jobs.

Jim Wimberly, executive vice president of operations for Southwest, had a broader perspective on the challenge that Southwest poses for air- ports:

We challenge the infrastructure and the airport leadership in many airports where we fly. Our presence brings demand for extra parking space. . . . That “Southwest effect” creates a real challenge for airport directors. [In the case of Baltimore-Washington International] our growth has put many more issues in front of the Maryland Aviation Authority than they traditionally have had to deal with. New road capacity, provisioning facilities, ticket counter positions, conveyer belts for baggage, new parking garages, rerout- ing roadways, updating the master plan, getting noise studies done—you name it. When we go into a city, we create orders-of-magnitude growth, not incremental, so we have to work closely with the airport or it won’t work.

Partnering with airports has been essential for Southwest’s success, Wimberly explained:

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Gittell, J. H. (2000). Southwest airlines way. McGraw-Hill Trade. Created from erau on 2022-09-17 16:37:22.

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