The business world has long gushed about Southwest Airlines and its management mastery. One of the original and lone-surviving contrarian airlines (remember PEOPLExpress), Southwest is a rare airline success story.
Much of this has to do with Southwest developing and using an integrated, authentic story about itself. From day one Herb Kelleher and his airline had a vision, and more importantly, commitment to telling that vision in authentic story form — and to living that story in daily operations . Whether evident in a children’s book that framed the company’s genesis, the warm-hearted whimsy of its NYSE ticker symbol (LUV) or bringing business casual to the cabin crew, Southwest consistently told its story—real, tangible and on its own terms.
That’s why recent industry events have given Southwest another leg up on the airline storytelling wars. First, virtually all other carriers scrambled and publicly panicked over an unprecedented spike in fuel prices. Then a tumbling economy led many to simply park planes (ironically raising passenger loads and traveler aggravation). From airline A to Z, arcane and sometimes stupefying fees were tacked on to normal fare transactions and travel. The customer was told all this was necessary for financial survival. While taking to the sky, carriers everywhere assured us daily their own “financial sky” was falling. Meanwhile Southwest simply did it what it always done.
Once again embracing its low-cost mantra, Southwest took to the streets and reminded everyone that it attached no additional fees for “special” reservations, changes, checking baggage and so on. And for Southwest this was easy – its real story (the one told yesterday, the day before that and in 1974) was put back in cycle after simply changing the object from “fare” to “cost” (with the help of some far-sighted fuel contracts) and poof — the battle for this day was won. It was almost too easy and all made possible by having, living and rightly telling an authentic story.
_____
John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
