Southwest Airlines Five Forces Model

1293 Words6 Pages
[pic] Colorado Technical University Southwest Airlines: Porter’s Five Forces Term Project - Final Professor Hanji Wu Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for ECON 616 Applied Managerial Economics By Larry Rodgers, Brent Packard, Leanne Marks, James Ladwig Colorado Springs, Colorado September 2012 Southwest Airlines: Porter’s Five Forces Analysis Southwest Airlines continues to show their strength in this tough industry. With the company’s main focus in keeping costs down, they are in a much better position than the rest of the airline industry in continuing to make profits during this current recession with customers being careful with their money. In fact, while most airlines strongly compete for their fair share of the market which has an impact on their ability to make a profit, Southwest’s focus has been on discovering new ways of increasing their profit. (Bundgaard, et al, 2006) Rivalry Among Existing Firms The threat of rivalry is high. Price competition has been the primary focus of the rivalry among airline companies. Many of these companies offer the same service such as flight routes, flight times, baggage handling, etc. And many customers are highly price sensitive in the current economy, so many airlines have started bidding wars. However, this price competition has decreased profits in the airline industry and lowered the price-cost margins of most of the major airline companies. Not to mention, the startup of some discount airlines such as Southwest has hurt the major airline companies even more. There are numerous strong competitors that offer similar services, with many using the same routes as Southwest. There are approximately 28,000 commercial air flights every day, keeping the airline travel market very saturated. With the high number of flights and number of routes

More about Southwest Airlines Five Forces Model

Open Document