Southwest Airlines Mission Statement | Vision | Values | Philosophy (2024 Analysis)

Company: Southwest Airlines Co.
Founders: Herb Kelleher and Rollin King
Year founded: 1967 as Air Southwest, 1971 as Southwest Airlines Co.
CEO: Gary Kelly
Headquarter: Dallas, Texas, U.S.
Number of Employees (Dec 2019): 60,767
Type: Public
Ticker Symbol: LUV
Annual Revenue (Dec 2019): $22.4 Billion
Profit |Net income (Dec 2019): $2.4 Billion

Did you know that Southwest Airlines had to sell one of their four Boeing 737s in 1972 to cover payroll?

The civil aviation industry is one of the most competitive, tumultuous, and highly dynamic sectors in the world. Survival and success in this industry for decades can only be attained by companies with impressive strategic plans and consistency in execution, such as Southwest Airlines.

The fact that Southwest has not only survived some of the worst periods for airline business but also thrived implies we can learn a lot from assessing the airline.

Table of Contents

Southwest Airlines’ Vision Statement

“To become the world’s most loved, most flown, and most profitable airline.”

What it means

Southwest Airlines vision statement consists of three components;

The strongest brand in civil aviation globally

The vision of ‘becoming the world’s most-loved airline’ communicates Southwest’s long-term plan and aspiration to grow and expand its operations globally. This acts as a strategic roadmap to guide the airline beyond the US market into the rest of the world.

Highly valued and preferred airline

The statement ‘most flown airline’ reflects the airline’s intention to increase its focus on customer satisfaction. For customers to fly Southwest Airlines over and over again, the management seeks to leverage the effectiveness and efficiency of its operations to enhance loyalty by offering value, experience, and convenience to the customers.

Attain high profitability

The third component of Southwest’s vision statement can be achieved as the result of attaining global operations and customers’ loyalty. This is because attaining these two components will enable the airline to attain profitability.

Alternatively, the third component can be interpreted as the airline’s aspiration to streamline its operations to increase effectiveness and competitiveness for the company to attain profitability.

Southwest Airlines’ Mission Statement

“Dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.”

To Southwest Airlines Employees:

“We are committed to providing our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth.”

Here is our analysis of the Southwest Airlines mission statement;

Attracting and retaining customers by offering the highest quality of customer service

In the current highly competitive airline industry, companies that compromise the quality of service are set on a path to failure. The advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have interconnected the world into a small communal village and delivered a wide variety of options directly to consumers via their mobile devices.

Technology-empowered customers will not settle for anything less than the highest quality of service. Any compromise to the service rendered can lead to mass migration to the numerous other perfect alternatives and substitutes at their disposal.

Offering warm and friendly customer service to attract and retain customers

In a technologically competitive industry, companies can differentiate themselves and stand out from the pack by returning to the basics: warmth and friendliness.

Southwest understands that a warm, friendly smile goes a long way in the service industry and triumphs over technology every single time. VIP treatment can only be delivered by the human element and personal touch in service delivery but not technology.

Promoting people empowerment, individualism, and pride to fulfill its objectives

The second component of the mission statement is geared towards nurturing a conducive environment to facilitate and motivate employees to deliver warm, friendly, and high-quality customer service consistently.

Southwest Airlines’ excellent human resource management focuses on providing excellent service delivery by manifesting these qualities through employees’ demeanor and interactions.

Southwest Airlines’ Values

The values of Southwest Airlines is categorized into two groups with three subgroups;

Group 1: Live the Southwest Way

Warrior Spirit:
- Strive to be the best,
- display a sense of urgency, and
- never give up.
Servant’s Heart:
- Follow the Golden Rule,
- treat others with respect, and
- embrace our Southwest Family
Fun-LUVing Attitude:
- Be a passionate Team Player
- don’t take it too seriously, and
- always celebrate successes

Group 2: Work the Southwest Way

Work Safely:
- Employees should always follow standard operating procedures,
- identify and report hazards, and
- respect and comply with regulations
Wow Our Customers:
- Deliver world-class hospitality,
- create memorable connections, and
- be famous for friendly service
Keep Costs Low:
- Show up and work hard,
- protect our Profit-Sharing, and
- always find a better way

These core values are what makes Southwest Airlines unique and highly successful. These values consist of 5 factors:

Selfless Service: Selflessness in service delivery cuts both ways to enable excellent customer service to trickle down to customers. This implies that the company will take care of its employees, allowing them to focus on offering customers excellent service.
Friendly Customer Experience: The warm, carefree, passionate, friendly, but respectful workplace environment nurtured within Southwest Airlines has transformed it from airline into a close nit family. Employees harness this conducive environment to offer friendly customer experience and welcome into the Southwest Airlines family.
Safety: Southwest Airlines prioritizes safety and holds itself accountable for delivering and protecting the safety of its customers and employees.
Reliability: The Company understands and values the importance of effective and efficient operations to ensure that customers can always rely on the services they provide.
Low costs: Even though quality service is important, the price also matters a lot. To this end, the airline values its competitive advantage as a low-cost operator that consumers can rely on for excellent service.

Southwest Airlines’ Philosophy

Southwest’s philosophy is anchored on 5 key elements that have driven the growth and success of the airline for decades.

Treat people well: Southwest Airlines is renowned for treating its customers and employees very well. Also, Southwest is always in the headlines for good reasons from rerouting to allow a mother to reach her son in a coma to a ticket agent taking home a stranded passenger, just to name a few.
Promote and nurture culture: Southwest takes corporate culture very seriously. From top-level management to low-level employees, the ‘Southwest Culture’ is consistently evident and adhered to.
Be original: The emphasis on originality can be traced back to its co-founder Herb Kelleher who apologized to no one for his way of life. The ideas of individualism, freedom, and carefree way of life is consistently evident within Southwest Airlines.
Hire for talent: Southwest always seeks the most talented person to join its family regardless of their level of education, experience, and expertise. This is because they can teach and train any person to provide great customer service, but they cannot change their DNA.
Always stay focused: Since its founding, Southwest Airlines has never shifted away from its core operating strategies. Even though most airlines switched to traditional hub strategy, the airline continued to use point to point approach without assigning seats. This contributed to the airline’s 47 consecutive years of profitability. Also, it has consistently used Boeing 737 since it was founded.