Jason Fried over at Signal versus Noise lists many of the ways Southwest Airlines is “simple”.
I have to admit having a deep, deep admiration for Southwest airlines. It is the official airline for Joyent within the United States. (Damn you Wright amendment when we travel to the DFW area!) I’ve even thought about going to work there (after Joyent, of course).
Herb Kelleher, the current chairman of Southwest Airlines, and founder, is a business genius. He was once on CNBC with Jack Welch (not a business genius, in my book, but that’s another post) a few months after 9/11 and the consequent severe decline in airline travel. Welch claimed to have noticed in many airports around the country that travellers were returning to the airways. Kelleher, not missing a beat, said something to the effect that “Jack Welch hasn’t been in a public airport terminal since ‘The Sound of Music’ was the number one movie in America”. I’ll even admit to taking a couple extra minutes Wednesday on my way back to DFW airport from downtown Dallas to drive over to Southwest’s headquarters to “just look”. It’s a weird building. Nothing shiny. The narrow windows communicate Cylon focus.
For all this, simplicity can’t be the end of Southwest’s efforts. Simplicity allows Southwest to keep its planes in the air. Simplicity drives down the time on the tarmac and at the gate. All the happy employees, boarding groups A-C, simple fares and refunds coalesce into planes that are up in the air more than other airlines (and with more people in them). Time it next time you fly Southwest. The plane will come into the gate, people will deplane, the next flight will enplane, and the plane will push back all in around 20 minutes (and I’ve seen it faster). This is the fulcrum of Southwest’s success, and why they don’t fly into places like San Francisco. For them, an airport that is “too expensive” means turn-around times more than 20 minutes (and that tends to be the mega airports).
What’s your “20 minute” fulcrum?
Update: Jason Hoffman saw this on a Southwest napkin.
6 Comments
It also helps that SW had futures on oil prices at $30/barrel when the current price is a little over $70.
Amen to that napkin! I never realized how much I might be contributing to the situation by flying AA through DFW all the time.
Also, I just wanted to note that this blog’s layout is one of the few that consistently makes me flip Safari RSS out of RSS mode and into regular page mode, because the color scheme is just so nice. It reminds me of the clean Twilight color scheme of TextMate. It’s about time computer screens stopped shooting white and bright colored backgrounds in my face.
I think the fuel hedges are an expediancy. Congrats to Southwest. But that’s not the core of the company. 20 minute turn-arounds are. Besides, Southwest is going to have trouble, now, replicating their hedges. But the 20 minute turn-around they can strive to improve upon.
The wright amendment is not arbitrary. Read about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Amendment
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