The Southwest Airlines Way

customer service functions. When asked why, President and Chief Oper- ating Officer Colleen Barrett answered:

We would prefer to just rely on ourselves and take that growth internally. There are advantages to alliances, but there’s not another airline out there that could communicate with us. There are no airlines that have systems sim- ilar to ours. We do not want to hold for other airlines or slow our operations.

At the same time, however, Southwest relies on outside parties to do what it cannot do—manage the airports, run the air traffic control system, and produce the airplanes that they fly. With these outside parties on whom they must rely, Southwest has taken a proactive, partnership- oriented approach that appears to generate significant payoffs to both Southwest and the other parties in the relationship. As we will see in this chapter, these external parties are treated to the same kind of relationship- building efforts that we have seen throughout Southwest Airlines.

Partnering with Airports

Southwest stands apart from the rest of the airline industry in the emphasis it places on building partnerships with the airports it serves. Kevin Dillon, the manager of a small airport in Manchester, New Hamp- shire, relates his own experience in working with Southwest. Southwest first began flying to Manchester in 1998. As in most other cases, the “Southwest effect” on Manchester Airport was immediate and dramatic. Traffic grew by 75 percent in the first year, and the average one-way fare dropped from $350 to $129. Before coming to Manchester Airport, Dil- lon had spent 21 years managing operations at larger airports, including Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Logan Airports. Dillon contrasted his experi- ence with Southwest to his usual experience with airlines:

I wasn’t used to this. I went to Dallas for my first meeting with their corpo- rate people. There were 12 people around the table, including LaPorte [Southwest’s station manager for Manchester], their regional marketing per- son, their facilities people, and their senior route planning people. They had Pete McGlade and John Jamotta there—the guys that go around in disguise to figure out where to put Southwest’s next flights! If I could sit down with a

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route-planning analyst at American Airlines, the most junior person who crunches the numbers, I would be lucky.

One benefit of this partnership approach has been joint problem solv- ing, resulting in new solutions to problems that would otherwise have constrained Southwest’s ability to grow.

Southwest seems to have a knack for pulling pearls of wisdom from people where you wouldn’t even know to look for them. They wanted to know about route access to this airport and as we talked about it we came up with some new solutions that we’ve implemented.

Southwest’s internal relationships, particularly its high levels of shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect, bolstered its ability to part- ner effectively with external suppliers.

At Southwest, they just don’t have any egos. I’ll go to make a pitch to them and they’ll have everyone there from all the functions. The business guy will say X, the facilities guy will say Y, and the maintenance guy will say Z, and they’ll all be on the same page. They jointly come to a decision, usually right there in the meeting. There’s no ego.

Dillon noted that he has been involved in well-functioning relation- ships with other airlines as well. The Southwest difference, however, is unmistakable.

Even at Continental it’s not like Southwest. Their manager of route plan- ning is a good guy, but you’re dealing with a bureaucracy. He might like the idea but he’s got to take it to his manager who takes it to his director, who has to put it in his strategic plan.

Airport managers can become part of the Southwest family by being included in the ritual of after-work parties. According to Dillon:

I hear that you’ve really arrived when they invite you to one of their Friday afternoon deck parties down in Dallas.

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