1-What do customers look for in an airline and what is the purchase decision process?

 The steps of purchase decision process are problem recognition, information search,
evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, post purchase behavior.
 SWA recognized that Customers look for a multitude of variable when selecting an
aircraft carrier. First, it depends on the needs of the individuals.
 For instance, an individual with a disability may choose an airline with an outstanding
reputation in quality care of their disabled flyers. However, if a humble family of 6 wants
the cheapest option available, they may choose an airline like Southwest, which gets the
job done at a reasonable price and does not offer gimmicks. Additionally, the times of the
problems in the existing airline service that were not met to consumers’ expectations.
 The purchasing process went as consumers first discover their need to find a
transportation to get to the destination in a timely manner.
 Then they further look into the values, cost, and services of the existing options.
Consumers then assessing the values to decide with one match with their intention the
most and continue to look for alternatives.
 This is when product positioning will affect consumers’ purchasing decision. A good
marketing strategy will attract consumers in doubts.
 Consumers then proceed to make the purchase. Lastly, consumers evaluate their flying
experiences.
 The factors could be ranging from if the price was reasonable, if the services were
beyond their expectations, if the check in and flying time were efficient...etc.
 All these post purchase behaviors could be beneficial and detrimental to airlines. If
consumers had a good flying experience, they would most likely fly from the same airline
again and recommend others to do so as well.

2-What segments exist and to what extent do needs vary by segment?

 In the airline industry there are several different segmentations that exist. These segments
include business travelers, holiday travelers, travel short distances, prefer low cost fares,
and frequent schedules, price sensitive travelers and loyal travelers.
 The local and frequent flyers are the ones that Southwest chose to target within the
market. Business and local customers typically fly often and therefore want the airline
they use to be efficient and affordable. Holiday travelers also want their airline to be
efficient, but they are willing to pay what they need to in order to get to their specific
destination. Loyal travelers will stick with the same airline because of the service quality
even if their prices are higher or increase in time. Price sensitive travelers typically only
fly when they need to and bargain hunt to find the cheapest flight regardless of the
airline.
 Value-conscious consumers care about the services they get from the amount of dollars
they invested. Values that consumers care about could be ranging from the service and
attitudes of hostesses on flight, the quality of the snacks, and the comfort during the
flight. Different consumers will value different things.
 The second segment is the small business executives. These consumers fly regularly and
represent 89% of SWA’s traffics. It is important to gain commitment from this segment.
SWA offers exclusive supply of tickets and billing on the monthly basis are the strategy
 to keep this segment of consumers. Business executives can save tremendous amount of
time by cutting down the costs of frequent purchase and payment of the tickets.
 The third segment is traveling short distances. Consumers in this segment look for time
saving efficient travel transportation. SWA attracts these consumers by simplifying
checking process and waiting time for the flight.
 The fourth segment is consumers who prefer the lowest cost fares. This segment is easier
to deal with as SWA simply offers lower ticket prices than others within the region.
 Lastly, the segment of consumers who look for frequent schedules. SWA’s strategy to
contain these consumers is to shorten the time of planes resting at the designating airport
and increase the trips a plane travel in a day.

3-How well were Braniff and TI satisfying consumer needs in early 1971? In January
1973?

 Braniff and TI were not satisfying consumers’ needs in the early 1971.
 This is why SWA saw the opportunities to create a well-established and consumer-
oriented airline to take over the market.
 The flights provided by Braniff and TI were usually crowded and hard to make
reservation.
 There were a lot of cancelled flights and the routes were not direct flying. Therefore,
consumers looking to travel usually have to stop at somewhere first, then their
destination.
 The poor punctuation and services led consumers to step away from flying and look for
alternative transportations.

In January 1973, Braniff came up with a new pricing strategy in which all tickets became half
priced flying in the major routes of SWA. Such strategy actually increased the number of
consumers and passed SWA’s number of passengers during that time. It can be seen clearly that
price was the biggest factor in this industry.

4-Evaluate Southwest's marketing mix

The 4Ps make up a typical marketing mix - Price, Product, Promotion and Place. 

Product-

 The main core product of Southwest’s is offering air transport services, and in which they
are using only Boeing 737 as to transport their customers.
 The tangible feature of the product is based on customer services provided by the flight
attendants such as the way the attendants handling pre and post complaints, courtesies.
 It was the first company to provide online booking of tickets, first company to offer ticket
less flights, first airline to offer satellite-based Wi-Fi services,
 It has an array of useful features to attract customers to fly with them. These are no fee
for changing flight, priority lane access and priority boarding, satellite-based internet at
 lowest cost, low-cost option to choose the desired seating, allowing pets on flight for a
small fee, Customizable vacation packages

Price-

 The company offered low-cost fares as a part of its marketing mix pricing strategy to
people travelling short distances.
 It was able to sustain this model due to its no frills policy. It had a skeleton crew of an
average of three crewmembers.
 It did not have an on-flight food policy.
 To increase operational efficiency, it used only one model of Boeing plane. All these
factors made Southwest airlines a competitive player in the market

Place-

 Southwest airlines differentiated itself by focusing no frills, short distance air routes in an
industry where most airlines focused on longer routes. Other airlines followed the hub
and spoke model while flying from one place to another.
 Southwest airlines emphasized on point-to-point flight, which led to less turnaround
time. 
 They use secondary airports instead of the primary ones in any city. These airports are
less congested, leads to lower expenses.
 Operates in mid-sized cities to keep operating costs low.

Promotion Strategy:
 The airlines have differentiated themselves from the competitors who portray a corporate
image. Southwest Airlines uses tongue in cheek humor in the ads and have catchy
slogans to grab the attention of customers. Some of them include, “Just plane smart, love
is still our field, Low fares. Nothing to hide, you’re now free to move about the country”.
 Full newspaper highlighting the advantages of SWA like low fare, fast ticketing,
inexpensive.
 TV ads were heavy with 30 second spots.
 Billboards and radio were also used.

5-What was the nature of the marketing problem facing Southwest in June 1971?

 The nature of the marketing problem faced by SWA was with respect to consumer
satisfaction and changing the airline image that had been positioned in the consumer’s
mind.
 A new unknown airline was trying to break into a market dominated by two established
competitors and the only point in favor of SWA was the great deal of dissatisfaction the
 consumers had. Additionally, Braniff being refereed to be the “World`s Largest
Unscheduled Airlines” was an opportunity window.
 In June 1971, air transportation was not seen to be the primary transportation tool
because of all the time wasted from checking in, expensive price, and air time. Therefore,
SWA was not only competing with other airlines, but also on ground public
transportations.
 SWA had to come up with a marketing strategy that will convince people that they are
different from Braniff and other airlines that were seen to be inefficient and poor
punctuality.
 SWA had to not only establish itself with the lowest fare but had to build the credibility
of being punctual and efficient.

6-What action should SWA take in response to Braniff's announcement of a 60-day, half-
price sale on the Dallas-Houston service?

I don’t think SWA should match Braniff’s deal. Braniff’s company strategy revolves around the
amount of passengers. However, SWA’s strategy emphasizes on passengers’ flying experience.
The amount of passengers Braniff will take away from SWA with this deal will not be that
significant. The flights will be packed and services will not be as good as SWA. Instead of
matching Braniff’s new price, I think SWA should come out with advertisements to persuade
consumers that flying experience worth more than few dollars of discount. Also, SWA should
have a good amount of loyal customer by now. The only consumers they need to worry about are
in the lowest ticket price segment. Since people from this segment care the most about pricing. I
think SWA can have one day out of the week dedicated to a lower priced trip with the same
services of regular price. This way, consumers from this segmentation will still be willing the
travel from SWA.

 Braniff`s move can be seen as predatory pricing that were designed to ruin SWA`s
positioning as being the low-cost airlines.

Let`s take a look at the possible options SWA has to fight the situation:
1. Pricing- In terms fighting w.r.t pricing the course of action is:
 Match Braniff`s fare on the discount flights
 Match Braniff`s fare on all flights
 Keep peak hour flights unchanged and extend discounts to mid day flights
2-Promotion-
 Offer some non-price form of promotion in lieu of fare cut.
 Engage in a major advertising and Publicity campaign to keep themselves at the
top of customer`s mind.

What was the actual response of SWA-

 The response to Braniff was a strategy designed to customers` loyalty and tendency to
favor underdog.
 It ran an ad in the newspapers headlined “Nobody`s going to shoot South West Airlines
for a lousy $13” which indirectly argued that no airline can operate between Dallas and
 Houston in this fare, thus suggesting that the price cut was just to raise a battle. SWA
made it a point to remind consumers what was the condition before SWA entered.
 The ad also set forth SWA`s pricing strategy that allowed to choose a fare between $26-
$13 between the two cities, both the priced tickets would be entitled to the same services
but for those who are showing loyalty and sense of support by opting for $26 ticket
would receive gifts of appreciation.
 Several days after SWA initiated the response it had the heaviest one-day traffic with
80% of the passengers requesting a 26 dollar ticket.