southwest airlines

I have been a passenger on Southwest Airlines since I was a child.  I flew alone on that airline when I was 9 from Austin to Dallas.  It was the only airlines I flew from Los Angeles to Austin during my college years and since then (except for one fateful flight on Delta which ended up taking almost 12 hours in total).  My credit card is a southwest Airlines card.  For every dollar I spend I get a point and for every 1200 points I get a credit and for every 16 credit I get a free flight.  I am happy with this set up since I can put just about everything onto that credit card (bills, gas, school, entertainment) and the points add up quickly.  

As an airline, Southwest has always seemed more efficient to me.  In recent years, you can print your boarding pass out at home.  You can actually just check in at home and print it at the airport if you don't want to waste paper and you will still get your 'A' spot if you did it early.  I could always except people to be camped out in front of their line letters an hour or so before the flight was to board, because we all know that the first few people on the plane get the ultimate best seats.  Well, maybe not.  In my mind, Southwest has been a brand that provided cheap (sometimes free with an award) flights to places I needed to go and they made that process easy.  They offered incentives and low prices.  They offered an easy to use website and the flight attendents were always a bit more cheerful and goofy than on other airlines. When I earned enough points to get an award, they also sent free drink coupons in the mail, which were always nice to have on those short flights from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, to help get the party going.

Southwest has always been adjusting and making their process easier and more efficient.  They have a history of listening to the customer and treating their employees well.

Their mission statement is: The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedicaiton to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.

My personal attitudes are changing about Southwest though.  The ease and low cost is going away and they are starting cater to a different group of travelers.  They now offer Business class, which is not a better seat, but automatic first priority seating.  (Think between the pre-boarders and group A).  They are trying to weed out the amount of Rapid Rewards that are used by only offering a few per flight.  They do offer a Freedom Award now which means you can combine two Rapid Rewards (2 free flights) to make 1 Freedom Rewards, and there are less restrictions and more availability to use those types of rewards.  When think about it in terms of my credit card points.  One freedom reward would be 32 credits, which would be 38,400 points.  I would have to charge $38, 400 on my credit card to utilize what used to be a regular Rapid Reward.  My thought on the brand are that it is moving away from it strong points and trying to salvage their business in a weakening market.  

As a brand, Southwest is well known and they have had some very well done marketing campaigns.  One that comes to mind is their 'Need to get away' campaign.  One of their price choices when purchasing a flight online is even called 'need to get away' to continue that idea beyond the television advertising.  Yet at the end of the day, the way a company acts and carries out its business speaks much louder, at least to me, than a mission statement or an advertising campaign.  I see them making changes, such as with the rapid rewards system, that are not looking to the customer's best interest and that are taking away from the quality of the company, and thus hurting the brand equity, for my part.  Someone who is a frequent flyer and is part of their business class may feel differently, because that says to me that Southwest is more concerned with the people that fly more often than they are about the customers that choose to fly Southwest less often- but those customer are still choosing to fly Southwest over another airline.  At least for now.