Aer Lingus upbeat mood reflected in its plans to grow capacity by adding aircraft to its North
American and regional routes.
Southwest Airlines
Ryanair was the first European airline to model itself on the successful formula of Southwest
Airlines in Texas by offering itself as a low fares, no frills carrier, serving short-haul city pairs
and providing single class air transportation. Southwest operates more than 3,200 flights a day
coast-to-coast, making it the largest US carrier-based on domestic passengers carried. In
addition, its subsidiary Air Tran operates 600 flights a day.
People Southwest has an acknowledged unique culture, largely attributable to its staff
members and their commitment to the company and its customers. The creation of a fun
environment is one of the ways in which the airline differentiates itself. The corporate
culture of the company, referred to by Herb Kelleher, its iconic founder and CEO until
2008, as a patina of spirituality is ingrained in its people. A family loyalty feeling is
further inculcated by staff development processes such as team training, 80 per cent internal
promotion and recognition events and practices. Staff turnover is well below the industry
average. Overall compensation includes profit sharing schemes. The workforce is almost
entirely unionised. Southwest has consistently been ranked as one of the best companies to
work for in the US.
Operations To maintain low fares, Southwest contains its costs on many fronts. Its point-
to-point route system with frequent daily departures from the same airport is cheaper than
most of its competitors hub-and-spoke system. The carrier flies into less congested airports
of small cities or the smaller airports of large cities. This saves time as well as money in
landing charges. The airline does not engage in interline baggage transfer and serves only
drinks and simple snacks on board for free, while charging for alcoholic beverages. These
operations result in shorter time to turn around an aircraft, claimed by the company to be
less than half the industry standard. This means greater utilisation of aircraft and lower unit
costs.
From its inception, Southwest has received many awards and recognitions. For its customer
service, among others, it has received Best Low Cost/No Frills Airline, finalist for Best Airline
based in North America, Favourite Domestic Airline and ranked #1 in Best Customer Service,
Best Airfare Prices, Best On-Time Service, Best Baggage Service and Best Value Frequent Flier
programme and Best Low Cost Carrier by Executive Travel magazines Leading Edge Awards.
Southwest Airlines has also been ranked #1 in the category for Airlines in Institutional
Investors magazine poll of Americas Most Shareholder Friendly Companies, an award it has
received many times. Southwest Airlines was named the tenth most admired Company in
Fortune magazines ranking of the 50 Most Admired Companies in the World in 2012, the only
US airline to make the list and the 16th consecutive year that Southwest had been named to the
Most Admired List.
cent in 2011.
Staying in the black was due to various measures:
an aggressive advertising campaign to affirm that Bags Fly Free only on Southwest,
resulting in increased market share worth $1bn and record load factors;
***************************************
List of Exhibits
Exhibit S1. Comparative Fare Levels
Exhibit S2. Skytrax Star Ratings
Johnson, Whittington, Scholes, Angwin and Regnér, Exploring Strategy, 10th edition,
Instructors Manual on the Web
Johnson, Whittington, Scholes, Angwin and Regnér, Exploring Strategy, 10th edition,
Instructors Manual on the Web
Aer Lingus 3
Air Berlin 3
Air Canada 4
Air France 4
Alitalia 3
Flybe 3
Germanw ings 3
Iberia 3
Jet2 3
KLM 3
LOT Polish Airlines 3
Lufthansa 4
Exhibit S2. Skytrax Star Ratings
Exhibit S3. Punctuality Statistics
Exhibit S3(a). Comparative Punctuality on Selected Routes
(January  September 2012)
London  Dublin
Average Operated Over Over Total
delay within 15 1 hour 3 hours flights
Rank Airline LHR LGW LCY STN LTN late (%) late (%) analysed N D
1 CityJet (incl VLM) 5.77 89.18 1.48 0.13 2,236
London  Rom e
Average Operated Over Over Total
delay within 15 1 hour 3 hours flights
Rank Airline LHR LGW LCY STN LTN late (%) late (%) analysed N D
1 easyJet 11.05 77.91 3.63 0.49 1,820
2 Alitalia 12 73.5 3.31 0.04 2,328
London  Dusseldorf
Average Operated Over Over Total
delay within 15 1 hour 3 hours flights
Rank Airline LHR LGW LCY STN LTN late (%) late (%) analysed N D
1 easyJet 6.66 87.84 1.94 0.26 773
2 Ryanair 8.62 86.15 2.1 0.7 715
London  Oslo
Average Operated Over Over Total
delay within 15 1 hour 3 hours flights
Rank Airline LHR LGW LCY STN LTN late (%) late (%) analysed N D
1 Ryanair 6.81 86.06 1.28 0 545
Operating airports
Operating airports
Operating airports
Operating airports
Exhibit S3(b). Punctuality Performance of Scheduled Airlines
2012 2009 2010 2011 2012 2009 2010 2011 2012 2009 2010 2011 2012
Rank Jan – Dec Jan – Dec Jan – Dec Jan – Sep Jan – Dec Jan – Dec Jan – Dec Jan – Sep Jan – Dec Jan – Dec Jan – Dec Jan – Sep
bm i Regional 1st 4.8 7.1 5.3 4.5 93.3 89.7 91.7 93.9 2 3.2 2 28,981 (TBC)
CityJe t (incl VLM ) 2nd 6.5 8.9 6.6 5.7 89.3 85.8 89.2 90.5 2.3 3.5 2.4 223,721 (100%)
KLM 3rd 5.8 9.3 6.9 6.4 90.6 84.7 87.7 89.2 1.6 3.2 1.7 1.6 19,355 (TBC)
Aer Lingu s 4th 12 13.7 9.1 6.6 79.2 77.9 83 87.4 4.4 5.5 3 2.2 20,100 (TBC)
Eastern Airw ays 5th 7.9 8.3 7.7 788.9 89.2 88.3 90 3 3.9 2.7 34,335 (23%)
Norw egian Air Shuttle 11th 13.7 15.6 10.8 8.7 75.4 73.2 78 83.9 4.6 6 2.9 2.7 8,043 (100%)
bm i baby 12th 11 18 10.3 8.7 83.4 72.8 83.8 86.4 4.3 8 4.2 2.9 5,484 (TBC)
Ryanair 13th 11 13.7 8.1 8.8 79.9 75.9 85.2 83.6 2.9 4.4 1.7 2101,609 (TBC)
easyJet 14th 13.7 24.9 10.2 9.2 77 61.4 81.8 84.7 5.2 12 3.4 3.1 157,771 (TBC)
bm i British Mid land 20th 9.3 11.7 11 11.2 83.4 79.2 78.7 79.7 3.2 4.3 3.5 3.7 21,530 (100%)
Flybe 21st 11.2 13.3 9.5 11.3 83.3 81 84.9 82.2 4.5 5.8 3.6 4.5 81,495 (71%)
Aer Ar ann 22nd 9.4 15.5 12.2 12 87.5 80 84.5 83.4 3.9 7.1 5.5 5.1 10,806 (94%)
Delta Air Lines 23rd 13.4 21.5 11.8 12.1 80.2 66.2 81.5 80.4 6 9.5 4.6 4.4 5,313 (100%)
Britis h Air w ays 24th 11 15.1 10.8 13 81.1 74 79.7 76.6 3.6 5.5 3.2 4.5 225,298 (100%)
Wizz Air 25th 16.7 22.9 16.2 14.7 73.1 67.7 72.5 76.4 5.6 9.4 5.2 4.6 12,673 (84%)
2012 Jan-Se p
Flights
Analys ed
(Sam ple %)
Average Delay (m ins.) Within 15 mins (%) > 1 hour late (%)